The Starplate Files
by Puddle-Jumper38
Summary: SGA/ X-Files cross! The team end up somewhere unexpected after checking out a weird piece of technology on Atlantis, things go steadily downhill after that.
1. Chapter 1: The Begining

Description: SGA/ X-Files cross Description: SGA/ X-Files cross! The team end up somewhere unexpected after checking out a weird piece of technology on Atlantis.Set in the middle of season three for Atlantis, early seasons for X-Files.Spoilers: For seasons 1, 2 and the first half of season three for Atlantis, I don't think there are any for X-Files, but I've been wrong before. Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis or X-Files, or any of the characters, no profit is being made, etc. CHAPTER ONE: THE BEGINNING

"Colonel!" called McKay, jogging to catch up with Sheppard. "Zelenka says he's got that piece of Ancient technology we brought back from MXM 142 to power up."

"We'll take a look when we get back. I would have expected you to be more excited about looking for Stargates for that gate-bridge thing you're building," commented Sheppard.

McKay sighed. "That's taking longer than I'd expected. Anyway, I was hoping we could take a look at this before we go. I've already sent Teyla and Ronon to Zelenka."

Sheppard sent him an annoyed side-glance. "We'll rake a look. But we're gonna have to make it quick."

"…it seems very complicated," Zelenka explained from behind the weird looking piece of technology. "We haven't quite discovered what it does yet but it has a very strong power source built in to it."

"Fascinating," said Sheppard boredly. He, McKay, Teyla and Ronon were standing in front of the Ancient tech. "It would be great to stare at the strange looking piece of technology all day, but we have to go."

"Of course. I'll tell you when I have more information," Zelenka told them.

Zelenka stood up from underneath the machine and as he did so he hit his head on the edge of it, pressing a button. The machine powered up and sent a beam out in front of it, at SGA-1.

McKay closed his eyes against the bright light when he open his eyes again he found himself standing in a large field. There was a small town in front of him. Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon were staring at it.

"McKay, what the hell just happened?" asked Sheppard.

"How do you expect me to know?!" grumbled McKay.

"Looks like we're on another planet," Ronon observed.

"Looks like Earth," muttered Sheppard, he was looking at the town.

Scully glared at Mulder as he examined his plate with intensity as they walked back to their hotel for the night.

"Mulder we are here to investigate x-file murders, not plates that have nothing to do with the case!" she told him.

"Scully, it does have something to do with the case!" Mulder insisted. "Before each string of murders recorded in the x-files, the owner of this plate at each time says that it glowed!"

Scully sighed. "I refuse to believe a plate with stars on it can glow of its own accord."

"Why would more than one person claim that it can?" retorted Mulder. "It also doesn't just have stars on it, it has thirty-nine little symbols around the edge that I can't make sense of."

"Mulder," said Scully. "plates don't glow. This is not helping us solve anything."

Scully realised Mulder had stopped dead in his tracks.

"What now?" she asked.

"Scully," said Mulder. "Scully, it's glowing."

Scully stared at the plate, it was glowing a light blue colour.

"Mulder… what did you do to it?" questioned Scully wondering if he'd pressed a button or something.

"Nothing," said Mulder, staring at the plate.

The plate flashed four times and stopped glowing.

"I think your little joke just ran out of batteries," remarked Scully dryly.

"I didn't do that," replied Mulder.

"Of course not," said Scully sarcastically and was about to say more when Mulder spoke again.

"Someone's coming. Come on."

He led her off the path and lay down in the long grass. Scully lay down next to him.

"You don't really believe that it's our murderer coming, do you?" she asked.

"Shhhh."

Scully rolled her eyes and listened, she could hear someone talking.

"...possible we've gone back in time?" someone asked, Scully frowned.

"Hmmm. I don't think so, if we'd gone back in time we'd probably still be on Lantea," a second voice answered.

"Well, what the hell happened then?" demanded the first person.

"I don't know, because, just like you, I just got here!" snapped the second person.

"McKay," grumbled the first person.

"Okay, I'll scan for power sources, if we've somehow been transported there has to be a piece of technology here somewhere," replied 'McKay'.

Scully wondered if these people were putting on an act for Mulder. She raised her head slightly to look. There were four people. One was tall and had dark eyes and dreadlocks; he was hanging back with a fairly short red headed woman. The other two people were standing in front, one was slightly taller, he had messy black hair and hazel eyes, the shorter man was facing away from her but she could tell he had short brown hair and was a bit fat. The two men at the front and the woman were wearing dark blue clothing and the tow men were wearing black military tack vests.

The other man with the dreadlocks wore a long coat and carried a strange gun. The other three were also all armed.

The short fat guy took something out of his vest.

"Mmm. There's an energy reading coming from over there." The short fat guy who had been called McKay turned and faced them.

Scully frowned, he was pointing at her and Mulder. The other three turned and looked.

"Great." The first guy who'd spoken, the guy with the messy black hair, started to move towards them.

"Wait," broke in McKay. "I'm also detecting two life signs in the same place."

What the hell? thought Scully. The conversation just kept getting stranger.

All four people raised their guns and pointed them into the grass where she and Mulder were.

Scully sighed and stood up. It was totally beyond her how they'd known they were there. Mulder stood up too with an annoyed grunt, leaving the plate on the ground so the strangers couldn't see it.

"I am Special Agent Dana Scully with the FBI and this is my partner; Special Agent Fox Mulder," announced Scully.

They lowered their weapons.

The guy with the messy black hair spoke up.

"Hi, I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, this is Doctor Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex."

"Yes, yes, yes. Now if we're done with the introductions, this is going to sound like a weird question, but where are we?" inquired Dr McKay.

Scully started to reply, but Mulder got in first, ignoring McKay's question and asking his own.

"You said something about time travel?"

Scully rolled her eyes.

"Uh…" said Colonel Sheppard. "You heard that?"

"Okay, whatever, they heard our somewhat strange conversation. Can I see the thing that giving off the energy readings, the one that you oh so cleverly left on the ground?" McKay was talking to Mulder.

Scully briefly closed her eyes. They could _not_ be talking about the plate…

"What's the FBI?" asked the dreadlock guy, Ronon.

Colonel Sheppard, who was apparently the only military person there, turned to him.

"I'll tell you later."

"Hello? I asked to look at the energy source!" interrupted McKay, the rather arrogant doctor.

Mulder eyed him suspiciously and picked up the plate.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me," said McKay.

Scully noticed Colonel Sheppard was trying to keep a straight face.

Mulder had noticed too. "What?" he asked.

"It's a plate with stars on it," explained Colonel Sheppard.

"And the gate symbols," added McKay.

"You know what it is?" asked Mulder.

"It's a Starplate!" sniggered Colonel Sheppard.

Scully really didn't get it.

"Ohhh no," groaned Dr McKay. "The scanner picking up the plate properly now, it says we're in a parallel universe."

"With a Starplate!" Colonel Sheppard was struggling not to laugh.

Scully was beginning to doubt all of their sanity. They were worse than Mulder.

"You're from a parallel universe?"

Suddenly Mulder was intrigued.

"Yes," said McKay. "Don't lock us up, we're serious."

Scully noticed the Colonel roll his eyes.

"Now they're even more likely to lock us up, probably in a mental hospital!"

"Parallel universe? I didn't know that was possible," commented Ronon.

"How do we get back?" asked Teyla.

"Don't know yet. Probably using the plate somehow. Look being here could be really bad. There are consequences for going to parallel universes, luckily my scanners giving me information stored in the plate and it says there are no Ancients or Stargates in this universe, so its almost the exact opposite to ours. But, the Ancients from our universe have been here; they came here, and made the Starplate. They only came back once though, because wraith got through into this universe the Ancients abandoned the idea," McKay explained.

"Wraith?" asked Mulder. "What's a wraith?"

"An alien that sucks the life out of you by placing its right hand on your chest," replied McKay offhandedly and got an annoyed side-glance from Sheppard.

Scully sighed, now he'd done it. They were investigating murders were strange murders where the victim was aged to the point of being practically a skeleton with nothing but a handprint on the chest. That and Mulder had heard the word 'alien'.

"Alien? Does the victim age?" asked Mulder.

"Yes," said McKay. "Pretty much to dust if the wraith feeds long enough, you see; that's how it eats."

Scully shook her head. "That's impossible."

"No its not," Colonel Sheppard told her.

"Yes it is. The chemical processes and internal structures of a creature like that are impossible," Scully told him.

"Oh really?" asked McKay. "And you know this because you've been everywhere in the universe and discovered every chemical and but of scientific knowledge there is to discover."

"Scully," said Mulder. "It has to be possible, its an explanation to how all these people's bodies have turned up so old when their friends and family had seen them alive and well the day before?"

"Please tell me he did not just say that," begged McKay.

"He did," grunted Ronon.

"There is a wraith here?" asked Teyla.

"Oh crap," muttered Sheppard.

Scully wondered just how many more alien believers she would meet in her lifetime.

"These murders are not the work of some life sucking alien," Scully informed Mulder. "This is some sick person killing people and then swapping the bodies with people who have been dead a long time. There is no way any creature can age someone in the way this is happening."

"You must believe that it is possible," insisted Teyla. "All of us have witnessed it with our own eyes."

"And some of us accidentally got demoted to lunch," muttered Sheppard under his breath.

"You've seen it happening?" asked Scully doubtfully, ignoring Sheppard's comment and wondering if she should have already called the mental hospital.

"Yes we have," said Ronon.

Suddenly there was a loud scream from the forest behind them. Without saying a word all six of them ran towards it.

Authors Note: Please review this! I have no idea if anyone will read it so I won't post the next chapter until I get a review, just incase no-ones reading it. I accept anonymous reviews!


	2. Chapter 2: Wraith Darts

Authors Note: This is a quite short chapter, but please enjoy

Authors Note: This is a quite short chapter, but please enjoy. Thanks for the reviews!

CHAPTER TWO: WRAITH DARTS

Ronon arrived first in a small clearing and stopped. Mulder wasn't far behind him. Scully, Sheppard and Teyla pulled up behind him. McKay came last, puffing and panting.

Scully looked down at the body, it was aged just like the others but it had a fresh bloody handprint on its chest.

"Definitely wraith," commented Sheppard, he turned expectantly to Mulder.

"It went that way," Ronon told him pointing away from the village.

"Right, well we can't let it get too far ahead," said Sheppard.

Scully realised they were going to go after this 'wraith'.

"I'm coming," said Mulder.

"You don't seriously believe an alien di this," complained Scully.

"It did," Sheppard told her, then turned to Mulder. "You're not coming."

"Yes I am. This alien is mine, me and my partner are on this case so I'm coming," announced Mulder.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "You're partner doesn't think wraith exist."

"Mmm," agreed McKay. "She'll probably get the life sucked out of her while she tries to explain to the wraith why it can't be real."

Scully felt quite insulted.

"Sheppard, we need to go if we're gonna catch up with it," grunted Ronon.

"Coming," Sheppard answered. "You two stay here." He told Mulder and Scully.

Scully watched as the four people ran off again, this time following Teyla and Ronon. Mulder looked at her.

"Take a look at the body," he told her and jogged after the others.

"Mulder!" called Scully after him, but Mulder was already gone. She sighed and got to work examining the body.

Sheppard swore as they discovered the wraith dart.

"Damn! If this is here there could be more wraith!"

"Is that a _spaceship_?" asked Mulder in awe.

"No, it's a building," retorted McKay sarcastically. "Sheppard, the FBI man followed us."

"You left your partner alone?" questioned Sheppard.

Mulder shrugged. "Scully can look after herself. Besides, you said the wraith went this way."

"Sheppard," said Ronon examining the ground. "There are at least five wraith and none of them are here right now."

"Teyla?" asked Sheppard.

"I am sensing six wraith but they are too far away for me to pinpoint their location," Teyla told him.

"McKay, life signs," ordered Sheppard.

"Fine. Okay, five of them are in the opposite direction to the town and the other is… uh oh."

"What?" asked Sheppard as Mulder stared at the wraith dart.

"The other is stalking Scully the sceptical FBI agent," explained McKay.

That snapped Mulder out of his awe. "It's creeping up on Scully?"

"It'll take too long to get back," said Ronon.

"We have to try!" exclaimed Mulder.

Sheppard looked thoughtfully at the wraith dart.

"Don't even think about it," warned McKay.

"I'd get there quickly," protested Sheppard.

"And everyone in the town would see a spaceship!" McKay reminded him.

"I'll keep it just above the trees," Sheppard told him and climbed into the wraith dart.

Mulder stared. "He's going to _fly_ it?!"

McKay ignored him. "Sheppard!!"

The wraith dart took off.

"Oh fantastic," muttered McKay.

Scully took out her gun and aimed it at the strange creature that was advancing on her. Part of her still refused to believe it. There was not an alien coming to suck the life out of her with its hand, it had to be a costume, a mask, but it was not an alien.

"Stop where you are!" she yelled. "I am armed and I will shoot!"

The creature jumped and, impossibly, landed right in front of her. Scully shot it in the shoulder and it hissed and knocked the gun from her hand. Scully punched it. The creature (not alien) hit her with its left hand. Scully cried out as she flew through the air and landed five metres away. Whatever it was, it had serious muscles.

She dazedly tried to get back to her feet, but before she could it lifted off the ground and into the air by her throat and drew back its right hand.

"This is not happening," choked out Scully.

The creature suddenly paused. A high pitched whine pierced the air. The wraith (no **not** wraith, it was not an alien), looked up and dropped her on to the ground with another angry hiss.

Scully rolled away from it and looked up to.

"No way," she complained. "No frikkin' way."

A long pointy spaceship was making the whining sound. It flew to towards her, a white beam extending down from it.

Scully grabbed her gun and was about to make a run for it when the beam passed over her and she blacked out.

Seconds later a second dart passed over the clearing, turned and followed the first.

Authors Note: Okay, before i post another chapter I still want reviews, just to know people are still reading. Sorry if Mulders character's wrong, i've never written x-files before.


	3. Chapter 3: Lunchtime

Authors note: Sorry its late, my chapters will be coming bit slower because I can't type fast enough Authors note: Sorry its late, my chapters will be coming bit slower because I can't type fast enough! Anyway, its up now so enjoy! (Thanks for the reviews!)CHAPTER THREE: LUNCHTIME

Scully woke up in a very strange looking prison cell, without her gun. She had never seen anything like it, she walked over to the 'door', which was like no other door she'd ever seen before and was just about to see if she could rip it apart when a screeching wail started. Scully clamped her hands over her ears to drown it out.

It stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Scully heard footsteps. She stared down the equally weird hallway and saw two wraith hauling along Colonel Sheppard. He hadn't seen her. He was struggling against his captors and managed to hit one of them in the head. The other hissed annoyedly, took out a strange gun and shot him with what was definitely not a bullet.

The creatures opened her cell and hurled Sheppard in. he crumpled to the floor. Scully went up to one of the wraith.

"I am Special Agent Dana Scully, I'm with the FBI and I demand to know what authority you have to hold me prisoner."

The creature walked out of the cell, closing the door behind it.

"Come back!" yelled Scully. "You have no right to hold me here!"

She sighed in frustration as it took no notice. She went over to Sheppard and checked his pulse; steady and a slightly fast speed.

Scully went back to the door of the cell and pulled at it. It didn't show any signs of coming apart, she kept trying anyway.

She heard a groan from behind her, Sheppard was waking up. She walked up to him. He opened his eyes and looked around.

"Oh crap."

Scully raised an eyebrow at him. "Have we just been demoted to lunch?"

Sheppard sat up. "More like dinner. At least they haven't started eating yet." He smirked. "I thought you didn't believe in wraith."

"That was before I got picked up by an alien spaceship! Anyway, you said you came from a parallel universe.

"Yep."

"And so are the wraith."

"Yeah…."

"Well there are no aliens in _my_ universe," Scully told him.

Sheppard snorted in amusement.

"How did you first meet wraith in your universe?" Scully inquired.

"Um… I was pinned down to a dinner table by one, but I'd just stepped through a wormhole to another galaxy, so it wasn't actually all that surprising if that's what you mean," said Sheppard.

"Alright," Scully wished she hadn't asked. "I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that. Hold on, you were pinned down to a _dinner table_?"

"Yeah, in a ship like this one," Sheppard replied. "Although it wasn't flying at the time."

Scully practically did a double take. "A ship? We're on a spaceship! That's not possible!"

"You said that about the wraith too," Sheppard reminded her.

"I know, but there is no way I am on a spaceship."

"You are, the wraith dart, the smaller spaceship, that picked you up brought you here, and I followed it."

"You are not going to tell me you can fly or walk through space," ordered Scully.

Sheppard laughed. "No, I flew another ship after you."

"Okay…" said Scully attempting to pretend she wasn't on a spaceship, and failing sadly. "You've been on one of these before, how do we get out?"

Sheppard looked past her. "One of those guys takes you."

Scully turned around and saw three wraith outside the cell. One came in, walked right past her and stopped in front of Sheppard. It grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the cell.

"Ow! Hey! I can move by myself you know!" Sheppard protested.

Scully tired to follow them out, but one of the wraith roughly shoved her back before she could. She wanted to know where they were taking Sheppard, he'd said he'd been in one of these… places before, meaning he knew how to get out.

Sheppard was thrown into the usual wraith queen's room. The queen jumped down in front of him.

"You will kneel," the queen ordered.

Sheppard winced as she forced him to kneel.

"Who are you?" hissed the queen.

"I doubt you care," replied Sheppard.

"You come from the same universe as I do."

"What gave you that idea?" asked Sheppard.

"You have been fed on by my kind before," the wraith stated.

"Really? I didn't notice."

"My ship is in orbit above a planet, is that planet Earth?"

"No," Sheppard told her. "Earth's millions of light-years in the opposite direction."

The pressure on his mind got heavier.

"You lie!" the queen snarled and hit him across the face.

Sheppard winced. "Did not."

"You will be returned back here in a short amount of time. If you still refuse to give me answers I will force them from your mind as I feed."

Two wraith guards came up behind him and hauled him to his feet.

Scully waited in her cell wondering how the hell she was going to get out.

She heard someone approaching the cell and looked up, wondering if they were going to drag her off now. She saw two wraith holding an annoyed looking Sheppard back towards her. Sheppard had obviously been slapped in the face.

The wraith opened the door and quite literally threw Sheppard in then closed the door and left again. Sheppard picked himself off the floor with a groan.

"You okay?" asked Scully.

"Yeah," Sheppard replied. "Apparently I'm wraith food next time."

Mulder had run straight off to where they'd left Scully the second McKay had claimed that Sheppard should have already returned with her. Mulder didn't trust military people, even if they could fly alien spaceships. He knew at least one of the other people was following him. Fine. Unless they were going to try and stop him from finding Scully he had no problem with that.

He stopped in the clearing where they'd left her. No Scully, just the victim's body. Mulder swore; no sign of the wraith or spaceship either. He should never have trusted the strangers!

The short fat guy, McKay, came into the clearing, yet again puffing and panting.

"What have you done with her?" demanded Mulder.

"What?" asked McKay, obviously surprised at his venom.

"Where have you taken her?!" asked Mulder angrily.

McKay frowned at him. "Sheppard probably has her in the dart. Ronon and Teyla are waiting for him to come back. I thought I better follow you, incase you were, you know, getting the police or something."

Mulder eyed him suspiciously.

"Look, you're partner will be fine-" He hoped "-I'll radio Sheppard and ask him where he is, just give me some time to boost the signal," McKay told him, taking out his scanner.

Scully heard wraith once again approaching the cell. Sheppard walked up to her.

"If they take you, don't tell them that they're above Earth or give them any information on it, okay?"

"I wasn't planning to," Scully told him.

"I wasn't planning to," Scully told him, like she would let aliens invade her planet!

There were five wraith. Four of them entered the cell, two of them grabbed Scully and the other two grabbed Sheppard.

Scully was not impressed.

"I am an FBI agent and I demand to know where I am being taken!" Scully told the wraith, seriously doubting that it had ever heard of the FBI.

They all ignored her.

It was beginning to annoy her that Sheppard wasn't doing anything. She would have expected the Colonel to at least try and escape.

Sheppard was taken into a room infront of her. Scully frowned as she was taken into the next room along and thrown in.

A wraith jumped down behind her. Scully whipped around to face it. It hissed at her, Sheppard had told her she would probably be taken to a female wraith if she was taken out of the cell, a wraith queen. This wraith was male.

It hit her, sending her flying across the room and then it advanced again.

"Is the planet below us Earth?" It questioned her.

Scully stood up from where she'd landed. "I thought I would be meeting with the 'Wraith Queen'"

She watched the wraith carefully, wondering if she was just about to0 wake up in her hotel room. It hit her back down to the floor.

"You will be taken to her once she has finished with the other human."

Scully wondered if that meant when the wraith queen had eaten him in whatever science defying way. She would feel sorry for him but she still couldn't quite believe that a creature could suck the life out of someone with its hand.

The wraith snarled at her. "Are we above Earth?"

"I don't know," Scully told it.

The wraith made a move to hit her again and Scully kicked its feet out from under it and then punched it in the head.

She didn't pause to see the results and ran out of the room, head spinning. She peered in to the room where Sheppard was. He was kneeling in front of a female wraith. It had to be the wraith queen. Sheppard wasn't doing anything; he was kneeling in front of a monster she would have assumed he'd move. There were two other wraith guarding the room. Scully saw her gun lying on a table outside the room and picked it up.

She shot two bullets in to one wraiths chest and killed it.

The wraith queen didn't look up, just hissed. "Get her."

The second wraith moved with amazing speed and knocked the gun from her hands again. Scully avoided it as it tried to hit her and moved further into the room. Despite the distraction she'd caused Sheppard still hadn't move. Scully frowned; lieutenant colonel or not the man was either stupid or crazy, probably both.

The wraith that she'd thought she'd knocked unconscious in the other room entered.

It hissed at her and took out a gun like the one they'd shot Sheppard with earlier, speaking of which…

"MOVE!" Scully yelled at him.

He didn't even look at her. The possibility that he was helping the wraith came to mind. Then the wraith queen drew back her right hand. Scully dived across the room past the wraith to her gun. A blue blast from the wraith's gun narrowly missed her.

Scully grabbed her gun and fired at the wraith queen and hit her target, the queen then decided to defy the laws of life and not die.

It hissed angrily and shot its hand forward into Sheppard chest, he screamed. Scully rammed into the wraith, knocking it off him and emptied her gun into its heart, thankfully the wraith queen didn't get up again.

Then something hit her in the back and the word went dark.

Authors Note: Yeah I know, more serious then I usually write, please tell me if its good!


	4. Chapter 4: Plate Problems

Authors Note: Okay, um just to let you know there's a completely pointless little conversation right in the middle of this chapter, sorry, I couldn't help myself! You'll see what I mean when you read it.

**CHAPTER FOUR: PLATE PROBLEMS**

Scully woke up back in her jail cell with a pounding headache and pins and needles. Whatever that gun had to knock her out really hurt.

She rolled over and sat up, she saw Sheppard sitting up against a wall. He was definitely paler than he'd been before but he didn't look any older. So much for the wraith feeding theory.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"I was just about to ask you the same question," said Scully and frowned as she realised she could feel a bruise forming on her head where the wraith had thrown her across the room.

"I think I owe you thanks," Sheppard told her.

Scully stared at him for a moment. "I created a distraction for you and you didn't do anything!"

Sheppard stared right back at herm obviously a bit confused.

Mulder paced around the clearing as the doctor (who'd turned out to be a scientist, not a medical doctor) fiddle with his white hand held machine and radio.

"That should do it!" announced McKay tapping his radio on. "Sheppard, can you hear me?"

Silence

"Sheppard come in."

The radio remained silent.

"Why can't I contact him?" McKay asked no-one in particular. "That's it, I'm finding his life sign!"

Mulder watched curiously as McKay once again fiddled with his white machine. Dots appeared on the screen.

"What's that?" asked Mulder.

"It's picking up life signs. I've got his, I just need to know how high up he is, it's probably why I can't contact him."

McKay did something else to the device.

"What?! No nonononono! I highly doubt that. What's he doing up there? No wonder I can't contact him!" complained McKay.

"What's wrong? Where's Scully?" asked Mulder anxiously.

"This thing is saying Sheppard's gone way up into space! Which he wouldn't have done! Uh oh," muttered McKay.

"He's taken Scully up in to space?!" exclaimed Mulder angrily.

"Um… actually I don't think Sheppard would have taken her up there… in fact I highly doubt it."

"So what's going on? Where's Scully?" demanded Mulder.

"She's probably up there too, but as I was saying I don't think Sheppard took her up there, my scanners just picked up a wraith hiveship in orbit," explained McKay.

"A what?!"

"I told you," said Scully. "How the wraith supposedly feed is scientifically impossible so it therefore cannot happen."

"Yeah, well, aerodynamically the bumble-bee can't fly," retorted Sheppard.

"Yeah, I know that, the size and weight of their body compare to their wing size aerodynamically makes it impossible for them to fly, but that has nothing to do with wraith," Scully reminded him.

"No, but it does show how scientifically made laws aren't perfect," Sheppard replied.

"So?" asked Scully wearily.

Sheppard shrugged. "So the bumble-bees go on flying and the wraith go on feeding."

Weir stared at Zelenka. "It transports people to parallel universes?!"

"Yes. Slightly differently to the quantum mirror SG-1 encountered, giving it different rules," Zelenka told her.

"How is it different?" asked Weir.

"Well, its got a much more stable way of reaching a parallel universe, it is possible for it to reach more then one universe, but it's programmed so it can connect with only one universe at a time. But as I said, that gives it different rules to the quantum mirror. While with the quantum mirror it takes a minimum of forty-eight hours before effects of being in a parallel universe start, and that's only if you meet yourself. But from what I read from this machine the effects come sooner or later depending on how alike the two universes are," Zelenka explained.

"So if they have gone to a universe with a SGC similar to ours who have sent an expedition to the Pegasus galaxy the effects would come sooner?"

"Exactly. What effects occur will also be different from the mirror, I cannot find out exactly what they would be but worse case scenario, where there's only a slight difference between universes, effects will begin with in the first two hours and the traveller may be dead in 24 hours. Also it makes little difference if you meet yourself or not."

Weirs eyes opened wide. "24 hours?! And the best case scenario?"

"Bets case scenario there's a big difference between universes and effects start in the first few days and the traveller will die in just over a week."

"I'd prefer not to take the risk, I need you to get them back within 24 hours," Weir told him.

Zelenka nodded. "I have a team of scientists working on it. I also have more bad news; some wraith have gone through the device."

"Wraith! How?!"

"Sheppard's team got the device from a planet with wraith on it, I have readings from the device that say some wraith definitely got though, possibly even a whole hive," Zelenka told her.

"That's not good. I need as many scientists as we can spare working to get them back!"

"And, Elisabeth?"

"Yes?"

"If any of the wraith die from our universe, the effects may come sooner, and the wraith have different body structures so from what we've learned it seems that the wraith can stay in a parallel universe for up to a year before they feel the effects."

"They can't kill wraith?! I need this fixed _now_. Please hurry!" exclaimed Weir.

Zelenka gave her one final nod before running off.

"Damn," said Sheppard as he heard wraith once again coming to his and Scully's cell.

"What?" asked Scully.

"They're coming back, and they're gonna be _really_ pissed at you now," Sheppard reminded her.

"Well maybe next time they'll think twice about throwing people around rooms!" said Scully.

"I doubt it," muttered Sheppard.

The wraith came around the corner and walked straight into the cell, one of them shoved Sheppard aside and the other two grabbed Scully.

Scully barely had time to protest before they dragged her off.

Sheppard paced in his cell wondering how the hell he was going to get out of this mess. McKay would know by now about the hive but he had no way of reaching it, and Sheppard was prepared to bet that the other FBI agent, Agent Mulder, would kick up one hell of a fuss if his partner disappeared.

A short scream pierced the silence.

Sheppard paused in his pacing to swear violently.

"Uh oh," said McKay.

Mulder stared at him. "What? Have you found Scully yet?"

"Um, I have no way of knowing which life sign's her because, unlike Sheppard, she doesn't have a locator. But one of the life signs just flickered."

"You said one disappeared before," Mulder reminded him.

"Yes that means something on the ship died. This life sign just flickered," McKay told him.

"Is Scully up there?" asked Mulder persistently.

"I told you, I don't know! All I know is that Sheppard is." McKay studied Sheppard's life signs for a second. "I think he's pacing, he's probably in a prison cell."

At that point Teyla and Ronon came into the clearing.

"He's still not back," reported Ronon.

"I sense a wraith hiveship in orbit," announced Teyla.

"Yes, I realise that. My scanner picked it up a little while ago, Sheppard's on it. I would have told you sooner but Mr FBI over here wanted information on his partner," McKay replied.

"I think it's perfectly reasonable to what to know what's happening to her considering you've just told me that your friend's taken her up to an alien spaceship!" exclaimed Mulder.

"I did notsay that! I said Sheppard _wouldn't_ have taken her up there!" snapped McKay.

"Well he obviously has!" Mulder retorted angrily.

Ronon stepped in threateningly. "Sheppard wouldn't take someone to the wraith."

"Ronon," said Teyla warningly.

"He's accusing Sheppard of taking someone to the wraith!" growled Ronon.

"He's a bad tempered FBI agent, ignore him," McKay advised.

"He is worried about his friend," Teyla told them both.

"_He_ is standing right here!" complained Mulder.

The Starplate started glowing. Mulder stared at it. The Starplate shot out a beam of light at a tree, and the tree was no more.

Mulder almost dropped the plate. "What the…?"

"Rodney, what was that?" asked Teyla.

"Errm, according to my scanner it seems, well, the scanner says the tree was just transported to our universe," announced McKay.

"So we just missed a chance of getting back?" asked Ronon.

"Hmm. Yes I think so, um… Agent… Mould?"

"Mulder," Mulder corrected irritably.

"Yes, that right. I need to look at the Starplate," McKay told him, clicking his fingers expectantly.

Mulder didn't move.

"He wants you to give it to him," explained Teyla.

"He's not getting it," replied Mulder.

"What?! I need it to help get us back home!" whined McKay.

Mulder folded his arms. "You're not getting it 'til Scully gets back safely."

McKay's jaw dropped. "You mean you won't give it to me until your partner gets back?"

"That's right," Mulder confirmed. "No partner, no plate."

Authors Note: heh bumble-bees. sorry about that I'd just read a quote form someone, it went like this... "Aerodynamically bumble-bees shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumbles don't know this so they go on flying anyway." -Discalimer: its not my quote. okay... cause of my aweful number of reviews from the last chapter I won't post the next chapter until I get some... Mwa hahaha haaaaa (thats my evil laugh).


	5. Chapter 5: Parallel Universes

**Authors Note**: SORRY!! It's late, I know it's late, I'm sorry! It's also a short chapter, i've been busy. i now have a scene break of numbers... one number written over and over again actually...

**CHAPTER FIVE: PARALLEL UNIVERSES**

Sheppard ran down the corridors of the wraith hiveship, he'd taken down the wraith who'd tried to take him somewhere and had found his weapons and tack vest. He was looking for Scully; hopefully the wraith hadn't killed her yet. They were probably beating her up for killing their queen first.

Sheppard crept around to the queen's interrogation room, guessing that it made sense that they would still take people there. Sure enough Scully was being held against a wall by a male wraith. She had a feeding mark on her chest, but she didn't look any older. It had probably only taken a year or two, like he'd guessed it was beating her up before eating her, hadn't anyone ever told wraith not to play with their food? Well he wasn't complaining…

He aimed his P90 at the wraith holding her, deciding to take care of the guards afterwards. Sheppard shot the male wraith five times in the back. It, having just fed, didn't die, but it did drop Scully, then it turned angrily towards him. Sheppard open fired at it. The wraith finally died and the wraith alarm sounded through the ship.

Sheppard swore and shot at the two guards advancing on him and then ran across the room to Scully, who looked very dazed and beaten up. He hauled her to her feet, she staggered. It5 seemed a bit pointless asking her if she was okay since she obviously wasn't so Sheppard didn't bother.

"Come on," he said, handing her his 9mm since he hadn't been ale to find her gun. "This way."

Scully recovered slightly and nodded. Sheppard led her to the wraith darts, avoiding all the now very angrily wraith.

Scully didn't look impressed when she saw the wraith darts.

"Nuh uh," she said. "There is no way I'm getting in one of those."

Sheppard sighed. "Wait here."

Scully frowned at him. Sheppard ran across the open space, dodging stun blasts as the wraith spotted him and scrabbled into a dart. Scully probably thought he was ditching her. Oh well, she could get pissed at him after he let her out of the buffer on Earth. He scooped her up in the darts culling beam.

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McKay was glaring at Mulder who now had his gun out to prevent Ronon from trying to forcefully take the plate.

Ronon had already threatened to shoot him, but Teyla had managed to keep some peace there… just. Particularly when Mulder had told Ronon that if he so much as raise his gun he'd shoot.

McKay frowned as a _very_ loud whine came from the air. McKay automatically looked up, one wraith dart was barrelling across the sky at top speed with about fifty other darts on it's tail. Typically when he looked to his scanner Sheppard's life sign was in the leading dart, he'd also be prepared to bet that the second life sign in the dart was the other FBI person. He sighed; the towns' people were going to be pretty freaked out but now.

Mulder had also seen the chase, he gripped the Starplate tighter and it glowed, symbols and stars flashing in what seemed to be a random order. Then it let out a beam of light, catching McKay and the dart being chased. Mulder stared as both McKay and the dart disappeared, just like the tree.

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Zelenka stared at the tree. Well it was proof that he could get the device to bring things back, but the tree hadn't exactly been what he'd had in mind and it so far hadn't helped him get anything else back.

The Ancient machine suddenly burst to life again, Zelenka turned around and saw it flashing and ran up to it and then swore in Czech. He turned on his radio

"Elizabeth, please report to my lab immediately," he requested over his radio.

Weir walked in seconds later, apparently she'd been near the lab.

"I was just heading down to see how your progress was doing anyway," she told him. "What's the news…"

She trailed off when she saw the tree.

"That came through during one of my experiments," Zelenka briefly explained. "The problem is I was just trying to figure out how to bring people back when the device activated again, but this time nothing came through, it changed its coordinates. What I'm saying is, it just changed what universe it's connected to."

**Authors Note:** Thats right, 42! oh and i'm not sure if anyone one noticed the address of the planet the device came from back in chapter one... both the numbers and letters. please tell me if you did.


	6. Chapter 6: Atlantis?

Authors Note: Okay, here's chapter six on time. It's not too short either. Thanks for the great reviews! I live for reviews :) !

CHAPTER SIX: ATLANTIS?

McKay ran over to the wraith dart, which was on its side and partly lodged into one of the walls of a hallway in Atlantis. The cockpit opened and Sheppard fell out. McKay's eyes opened wide when he saw the wraith feeding mark.

"Sheppard! Are you okay?" asked McKay; he didn't _look_ any older.

Sheppard frowned at him. "No! What the hell just happened? One minute I was flying the dart at top speed away from the wraith and then suddenly the dart's stopped and won't move and I got out and find myself somehow back in Atlantis with the dart halfway through a wall!"

"Um… I think we've been sent back to our universe through the Starplate, but I'm not sure. Anyway, that's not what I meant, you managed to get yourself fed on!"

"Oh," Sheppard grimaced. "That. I don't think it took any of my life, Scully shoved it off pretty quickly."

McKay had almost forgotten about the second FBI agent. "Where is she? Agent… Her partner was pretty worried about her."

"She's in the buffer," Sheppard told him and reached back into the cockpit to release her. Scully was rematerialised.

McKay looked from Scully to Sheppard. "You _both_ got fed on? And Scully got beaten up. What did you do to annoy them do much?"

"Scully shot the wraith queen," explained Sheppard.

"She _what_?!" exclaimed McKay.

"Where are we?" broke in Scully, looking quite annoyed.

"We're in Atlantis, McKay thinks this is our universe," Sheppard answered.

"Atlantis? You better be joking," said Scully.

McKay sighed, as she seemed to be trying to decide whether or not Sheppard had been kidding.

"Just like the parallel universe thing, we're serious," McKay informed her. "We live in another galaxy called the Pegasus Galaxy in the lost city of Atlantis, which was built over ten thousand years ago by a race of people we call the Ancients. When we got here we woke up the wraith, pissed them off and now there trying to eat us and then get to Earth. That's our story as of two and a half years ago."

Scully gave a long resigned sigh. "I like my universe better."

Sheppard snorted in amusement. "I'm not surprised, McKay go wait outside the infirmary with Scully, don't go in until I tell you to, I'm going to the gateroom to check this is really our universe."

"Fine," muttered McKay, and turned to Scully. "This way."

Scully decided that it would probably be a good idea to do as she was told considering that she still knew next to nothing about McKay and Sheppard's universe, apart from the fact that it was totally and completely crazy.

McKay led her to a large room filled with hospital-like beds and medicines and then stopped outside. Scully noticed that there was no-one at all in the room.

"This isn't right," whispered McKay.

"Why not?" asked Scully.

"There's _always_ someone in here, _always_. Whether its nurses looking after patients or Carson checking the supplies. But it's never empty," McKay told her, then his radio burst to life making them both jump.

"_McKay,"_ Sheppard said over the radio.

"I can here you," McKay replied.

"I don't think this is our universe…"

"No, neither do I," McKay told him. "Let me guess, the gateroom's deserted?"

"_No. There are Genii here."_

McKay's eyes opened wide. "What? Genii?"

"_Yeah. Crap. I think they saw me! Sheppard out."_

The radio went dead.

Scully stared at McKay. "Genii?" she asked.

"Oh, I forgot you wouldn't know. They're a race of people who come from the Pegasus Galaxy and their ex-commander, Kolya, is definitely NOT a friend of Sheppard's," McKay briefly explained.

"By 'a race of people' you mean they're not from Earth?" asked Scully.

"Yes that's right, they're still human but over the years we're been here they're almost managed to be as much of a pain as the wraith," grumbled McKay. "We better get moving, I think we need to find Sheppard."

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Sheppard jogged down the halls of Atlantis, he was sure that the Genii hadn't seen who he was. Good. Another universe or not he was going to kill Kolya.

He rounded the corner and almost ran right into McKay. Scully wasn't with him.

"McKay! What the hell?" complained Sheppard annoyedly.

McKay stared wide-eyed at him and then slowly backed off. Sheppard immediately assumed there was someone behind him and turned, raising his P90, there was no-one there.

"Hey! Don't do that! Where's Scully?" asked Sheppard annoyedly.

He then took in that McKay's expression hadn't changed and he was now muttering and shaking his head while continuing to back off.

"McKay…?" Sheppard took a slow step forward.

McKay froze. "Stop, please… go away. J… just go away."

Sheppard raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Are you okay?"

"No! You're not real!" exclaimed McKay.

"What the…??" Sheppard was very confused.

"I watched Kolya get a wraith to kill you! You're not real! You can't be," groaned McKay.

"What did you just say?!" demanded Sheppard

"I watched a wraith kill you!" repeated McKay. "Before Kolya took command of the Genii and took over the city he got the wraith to feed off you. I watched it kill you!"

"Kolya _killed_ me?! Oh crap, look, McKay, I gotta go. Just pretend you didn't see me," Sheppard told him and then ran off before McKay could do anything.

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McKay peered around a corner and saw Ronon obviously trying not to be seen.

"Uh oh. Scully, we… err... have a problem," said McKay, then realised that Ronon had heard him. The ex-runner turned, aiming his gun and then saw McKay.

"Uh, hi," greeted McKay.

"McKay! Lorne said you were working on getting to a power station to prevent the Genii from following our life signs, what are you doing here?" grumbled Ronon, then looked suspiciously at Scully. "Who's that? Is she Genii?"

"Um… no. This is Agent Scully… so what did you say was happening?" asked McKay.

"We've escaped and are taking the city back from the Genii!" replied Ronon, as if it were terribly obvious.

"How did you get to this universe?" questioned Scully. "Is Mulder here too?"

"That's Ronon from this universe!" hissed McKay.

"What?" asked Ronon.

McKay's radio suddenly burst to life again.

"_Bad news. There's no way this is our universe."_

McKay winced a little, Sheppard could sometimes have really bad timing, now Ronon was staring at him.

"Who was that?" demanded Ronon.

"_McKay?" _Sheppard asked again. "_McKay, when I speak to you over the radio I always expect you to answer."_

McKay wished he'd keep quiet. "I know. Just shut up for a second will you?"

"Why? What's wrong?"

"A lot of very bad things if you don't shut up!" complained McKay, having no idea why Ronon didn't recognise Sheppard's voice, but knowing it had to be a bad thing.

"Who is that?" Ronon asked again.

Scully decided to take more control of the situation. "That was Colonel Sheppard…"

She trailed off as Ronon's gun came up and pointed at her. "McKay, are you _sure_ she's not a Genii?"

"Yes, I'm sure! She's not a Genii, now put you're gun down, she's a friend," lied McKay, Ronon probably wouldn't be happy if he found out that he was trusting someone he'd known for all of two hours.

"Then why did she say that?" Ronon demanded, lowering his gun slightly, but not completely.

Scully opened her mouth to answer but McKay cut across her.

"She didn't know what she was saying. Hang on a second, I need to do something…" McKay got his scanner to beep into his radio in Morse Code to Sheppard.

"_I am __**not**__ talking in Morse Code, McKay. Just tell him we're from a parallel universe," _came the Colonel's annoyed answer.

McKay scowled, if he'd understood the message Sheppard could easily have humoured him and continued using Morse Code.

"Keep your voice down," snapped McKay, while Ronon suspiciously raised his gun and again and Scully raised Sheppard 9mm at him. "Ronon didn't seem to happy when Scully mentioned you."

"Of course he didn't. I just found out from, well, I just found out from you in this universe that I was killed, I'm dead in this universe."

"What?!" shouted McKay loud enough for both Scully and Ronon to stare at him.

"_I'm dead here. Kolya actually got that wraith to kill me here… uh oh."  
_

"What's happened now?" asked McKay.

"_Well, right on cue, the bastard's just turned up,"_ Sheppard told him.

McKay frowned. "Then run!"

"Too late, oh well, I want to shoot him anyway."

"Huh? Wait! No no no, that's a bad idea!" McKay replied.

"Can't talk now, McKay. Sheppard out."

"Wait!" yelled McKay. "Oh this is not good."

"You're from another universe?" asked Ronon doubtfully.

"Yes we are, except I'm from a different universe to him," said Scully. Mulder always said he wanted to believe and right now Scully wanted to believe that she was having some completely mad dream and she would wake up soon.

Ronon was looking at McKay, still disbelievingly. "And Sheppard's still alive in your universe?"

"Yes, but he won't be for long if he kills Kolya!" grumbled McKay.

"Time out!" complained Scully. "What's happening now?"

Scully had discovered that trying to keep up with things happening in a universe she knew nothing about was very hard.

"There are rules of travelling to a parallel universe! You're very lucky you got out of your universe before you suffered the consequences of killing that wraith queen! If Sheppard kills Kolya, he's in trouble. This universe is way too much like ours to go meddling around with anything!" exclaimed McKay.

"And that would mean what?" asked Ronon.

"It would mean Sheppard might die. By killing Kolya that would cause a huge change in this universe because of the current events here, Sheppard may as well shoot himself!" explained McKay.

Authors Note: Heh. just _had_ to leave it there!


	7. Chapter 7: KABOOM

A/N: I'm sick of writing 'Authors Note' ever time I want to say something, so I'm going to be normal and just write A/N **A/N:** I'm sick of writing 'Authors Note' ever time I want to say something, so I'm going to be normal and just write A/N. Hmm writing that was more typing then just writing Authors Note, which I have now written twice, damn this Auth… I mean A/N.

Okay now this is chapter seven on time again! Yay! You might notice that in my stories 'in front' is one word. I always write in like that and it is now officially a word on my computer because I added it to the dictionary, along with Ahhhh, um, err, uh hmm, Mmm and duh. As well as all Atlantis-related things of course. My computer didn't recognise any of them as words! Can you believe that? Well I fixed it, it will never bother me with that again.

And, Lieutenant George Mills is my Own Character so he officially subject to copyright, not really, but I'd still prefer if you didn't copy him. Sorry, I'm rambling, here's chapter seven.

**CHAPTER SEVEN: KABOOM**

Weir got Lieutenant George Mills's team to assemble in front of the parallel universe machine.

"Thank you for volunteering for this mission. Remember the remotes Dr Zelenka has found for you should bring you back to this universe but they haven't been tested. Good luck," Weir said.

Zelenka sent her a worried look, afraid that the newly found remote-like machines wouldn't work. Weir had called Dr Beckett to come to the lab incase someone had injured themselves. (Which, knowing SGA-1, Weir thought was very likely.

She nodded at Zelenka, he pressed a button on the machine and it sent SGA-8 to a parallel universe to bring back the ever-troublesome SGA-1.

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Sheppard turned and ran down the corridor, away from the Genii, they immediately started shooting at him. Sheppard grabbed a grenade out of his vest, pulled the pin, threw in at the Genii and then ran. He got about twenty meters before diving around a corner as the grenade exploded, the explosion was ten times larger then he'd anticipated.

Sheppard moved back around the corner, stopped and stared. There was a huge gaping hole infront of him, Sheppard looked up and saw the sky, he looked down and saw the Stargate on a whole lot of rubble, which was starting to get covered with water. Suddenly a sharp pain sot through his body, Sheppard fell against a wall passed out.

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Mulder was not a happy man. The Starplate or whatever the hell it was had apparently sent Scully to another universe. He was furious at the military man for getting Scully on to the spaceship in the first place. He'd also found out from Ronon, much to his annoyance the they were part of something called the Stargate Program in their universe, which was actually a government conspiracy and when he'd finished yelling at them for that a stampeding mass of people ran past them to go deeper into the forest as the little ships started throwing down beams of light.

Teyla had annoyed him more by saying they were culling people.

Then, just to make things worse Teyla and Ronon had also been caught in a 'culling beam'. Luckily it wasn't hard to spot the ship that had taken them because a kid had hit it with a paintball gun so it was now a very colourful spaceship.

Mulder decided that he was going to get the two strangers back simply because they would know how to get Scully back. It was time to visit an old friend.

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McKay and Scully had eventually (with some effort) managed to convince Ronon that they were from a parallel universe and Scully could be trusted, before telling him to get back to what he'd been doing incase, in McKay's words, 'they screwed up the universe by delaying him.'

Shortly after that a huge explosion had rung out and Atlantis had shook. They were following the sound of the explosion.

They found Sheppard sitting up against a wall next to some very charred looking walls and a huge gaping hole which extended up as well.

"What did you do?!" demanded McKay, staring at the gaping hall which had once been the tallest spire of Atlantis and then some.

Sheppard blinked at him. "I, uh, threw a grenade at the Genii, who must have been carrying some sort of very powerful explosive…"

"And some of the controls in the control room, or should I say ex-control room, can be explosive! You just blew up a large chunk of Atlantis in this universe! Do you have any idea how bad this is?" McKay asked him. "Oh we are so screwed, you particularly."

"Let me guess, there's rules about interfering with parallel universes?" guessed Sheppard, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course there are! We're not meant to be here and you just destroyed Atlantis! Interfering that badly could easily kill you!" exclaimed McKay.

"Ohhh, _that's _why it hurt," said Sheppard, then looked thoughtful. "I did kill Kolya, though."

Scully stared at him. "Who is this Kolya guy?"

"I already told you!" complained McKay.

"You didn't explain who he was, you only mentioned him once," Scully reminded McKay.

"Yes… well yes you're right," said McKay.

"Kolya's a real pain in the ass, and it was him who killed me in this universe," Sheppard explained.

"He did?" asked McKay.

"Yeah, I told you over the radio, he got that wraith to kill me in this universe," Sheppard replied.

"Oh yeah," said McKay.

Scully was really getting sick of being confused, it was time to call time out again.

"Okay! For those of us who don't live in crazy universes, what _are_ you talking about?" questioned Scully.

"Oh," said McKay. "Kolya got a wraith to suck the life out of Sheppard in a prison."

Sheppard rolled his eyes. "Yes and she just had to know that."

"She asked!" pointed out McKay.

"No she didn't!" replied Sheppard. "She asked who Kolya was!"

"But then she asked what we were talking about!" snapped McKay.

"Yeah, and simply saying that Kolya got a wraith to kill me in this universe would have been fine!"

Scully decided to break in again.

"I thought you said if a wraith sucks the life out of you then your dead," she said.

"That's if it sucks out all of your life," Sheppard told her. "It feed on you, but you're not dead."

"I also remember being told when a wraith feeds on someone, the victim ages," Scully reminded them.

"They do," McKay replied. "The longer they feed on you, the more life they take. This time the wraith obviously didn't feed off you or Sheppard long enough to age you but if it had fed longer you would have. Kolya's wraith aged Sheppard."

"McKay!"

"Sorry. I was just explaining to her how the wraith takes someone's life," huffed McKay.

"Leave out the extra information," grumbled Sheppard.

Scully squinted at Sheppard. "A wraith aged you? How old are you?"

Sheppard looked quite insulted. "Just as old as I look!"

McKay snorted. "I know he acts like a five year old, but he'd not."

"Hey! I do not act like a five year old!" exclaimed Sheppard.

"Stop arguing!" snapped Scully irritably. "You keep contradicting what you're saying! First you tell me that wraith feeding ages people, which is impossible, then you tell me the Sheppard was fed on by a wraith, but he hasn't aged!"

"He _was _fed on by a wraith," McKay told her. "But then he helped it escape from a prison, os it gave him his life back."

"Happy now?" asked Sheppard.

"No," Scully told him, she was about as far away from happy as was possible. "What you're saying is completely and utterly impossible. Aliens exist in your universe, okay, fine, I can deal with that, I've seen your aliens. But it is impossible for a creature to feed by aging someone and _forget_ being able to put their life back again! There would be too much strain on the creatures system to do anything near and, as I told you before, it defies _all_ the scientific rules of life."

"Tell that to the wraith," retorted Sheppard, not wanting to repeat the same argument again. " Anyway, wraith _do_ defy the rules of life. You can shoot them and they don't always die, you've seen that."

"Et hem. I'd hate to interrupted the argument but we are standing right next to a huge gaping hole that is very, very bad and it…" McKay looked down and froze. "And the Stargate's down there and ahhhh! We're sinking!"

"What?" asked Sheppard in alarm.

"Some of the controls in that ex-control room were highly explosive, they obviously sent a vertical line of flame right down to the ocean, you destroyed the middle of Atlantis, and now we're slowly sinking!"

"We're on water?" asked Scully cautiously.

"Yes," said Sheppard, and then doubled over slightly. McKay frowned at him.

"Are you alright?"

"No," grunted Sheppard, obviously in pain.

Suddenly the air seemed to shimmer. Sheppard groaned and passed out.

McKay glanced at Scully as the city started sinking faster.

"Help me with him. We need to get back to the wraith dart, the Starplate in this universe will probably be near there."

"He needs medical attention," Scully disagreed.

"No, he needs to get out of this universe, _right now_. You know the air seeming to shimmer just then? This universe has been completely screwed up from us being here! And Sheppard caused it! We all need to get out of this universe before even more bad things start happening!"

The air shimmered again. McKay's scanner beeped.

"Uh oh."

"What now?" asked Scully.

"Well I was right, my scanners picked up the Starplat4e in this universe right next to the wraith dart. But if we don't get there very soon, we, and the team from my universe that just arrived will sink with Atlantis, now help me carry Sheppard," snapped McKay.

Scully and McKay started to take Sheppard back to the dart but only got about half way there before McKay's scanner beeped again and this time the air shimmered and shook.

"What was that?" asked Scully.

"It was my scanner telling me that the hiveship from your universe just arrived here. I think only it and wraith came through but we really don't have time to check because it being here over Atlantis just disrupted what ever was left of this universe and now the whole universe is about to explode! So we need to RUN!" yelled McKay.

He and Scully took off at top speed half-dragging Sheppard behind them. They ran right into Lt Mills's team. McKay checked his scanner, which quickly confirmed that they were from his universe.

"This way, quick!" McKay ordered and the very confused team followed.

They skidded to a halt infront of the wraith dart. Scully saw the Starplate attached to a wall.

"Over here!" she yelled as McKay tried to get Lt Mills to stop asking him questions.

McKay told the confused Lieutenant to get Sheppard and then stand infront of the Starplate ("Yes the little plate with stars on it. We called it a Starplate.") and started fiddling around with his scanner.

"Ah ha! It's Gene activated!" exclaimed McKay, confusing Scully on exactly how the Genetic make up of someone could possibly help. "Stand infront of it!"

Scully moved to stand infront of it along side the other team.

McKay started pressing random symbols and stars and the plate. "Come on, come on. Get us out of here!"

The whole of Atlantis tilted and the air itself shook again.

"McKay…" started Mills.

"Yes, I know! I'm trying!" snapped McKay, who was also now trying to keep his balance on the ever-tilting floor.

He gripped the Starplate, still attached to the wall, in one hand and poked a few more symbols.

The plate finally glowed and sent out a beam of light swallowing up McKay, Scully, Sheppard, and Lt Mills's team. The universe blew up behind them.

**A/N: **I try to give information on where all my characters are at in each chapter, but it's hard. Oh, and of Lt Mills's team, I don't have names for the other members of his team, so could anyone give me ideas, please! I'm useless with names.

And thanks for all the great reviews I'm getting! :)


	8. Chapter 8: Bugs

**A/N:** This chapter is my favourite so far.

**CHAPTER EIGHT: BUGS**

Teyla woke up back on Earth and immediately sensed a wraith right next to her; she rolled to one side and smashed into Ronon, who woke up with a startled grunt.

Teyla took in the annoyed looking wraith, who was obviously injured, and the (colourful) crashed wraith dart and she and Ronon dived across the crash site to their weapons which were in a pile.

Ronon lifted his gun and was about to kill the wraith when Mulder appeared with a bazooka and blasted it into hell.

"Where did _that_ come from?" grunted Ronon, obviously impressed.

Mulder shrugged. "I know someone in the town who sells illegal weapons. I got this and shot down the spaceship that picked you guys up."

Teyla smiled. "Thank you."

Mulder sent her a stony glare. "The 'Starplate' activated again, it shot a beam up into the sky, catching up a lot of the small spaceships on its way up. I need to know how to use it to get Scully back."

"The hive ship has gone," announced Teyla suddenly. "I can no longer sense it."

"So the Starplate sent it away?" asked Ronon.

"From Agent Mulder's description of the Starplate's activation I think so," replied Teyla.

"Good," grunted Ronon.

"You still haven't told me how to get Scully back!" exclaimed Mulder.

"We don't know," explained Ronon.

"What?!"

"What Ronon means is we don't know how to use it. Doctor McKay would have figured out how to use it, but he is the smartest man in our universe," clarified Teyla.

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"Shit!" yelped Lorne and backed away from the machine Zelenka was working on as it suddenly burst to life and let out a series of low and high beeps while flashing.

Zelenka swore in Czech and also backed away.

Doctor Beckett, who had arrived in the room only minutes before so he was ready to give medical attention to anyone who came back through the machine and needed it, stared uncertainly at it. "I take it it's not meant to do that?"

"No," said Zelenka. "It flashes when switching between universes, but it hasn't beeped before."

The device suddenly stopped it's random beeping and let out a very high pitched sound causing everyone in the room, as well as some surrounding rooms, to clamp their hands over their ears.

"Turn that thing off!" yelled Lorne.

Zelenka (very helpfully) yelled back in Czech.

"You're going to wake the bloody dead!" complained Carson. "Turn it off!"

An alarm sounded through Atlantis.

Weir ran into the room wearing earmuffs. "What _is_ that noise?!"

The machine suddenly began letting of beams around the room. Weir dived back out of the room to avoid one. Zelenka and Lorne both dived to the floor as beams sailed over their head while Beckett was hit before he could do anything. He disappeared.

The machine stopped making any noise. The alarm stopped. Atlantis was thrown into silence.

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Sheppard woke up with a very nasty headache, with a leave tickling his nose. He sneezed and almost over balanced.

"Whoa!" he yelled as he grabbed another branch to steady himself and stared at the very long drop to the ground. Exactly how had he ended up in a tree?"

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McKay picked himself of the ground and looked around at Scully and SGA-8, looked down at his scanner and then did a double take.

"Where's Sheppard?" he asked in alarm.

Lt Mills looked around in confusion. "I don't know. I dragged him into the path of the …um… the _Starplate_'s beam. He should be here."

Scully stared around at the forest's tall smooth trees. "Where are we?"

McKay waved he question away. "Don't know. Sheppard's not here and…" McKay checked data on his scanner. "…if he was still in the universe we just left, my scanner has confirmed that it blew up behind us."

There was a short silence, which was soon interrupted.

"Whoa!" came a yell from above them.

Lt Mills jumped. "Sir?"

"Sheppard, where the hell are you?" inquired McKay irritably over his radio.

"Um… I'm in a tree… what happened?"

Scully frowned.

McKay sighed. "A tree? Well done, how _do_ you do it? At least you can't get at me for blowing up five-sixths of that solar system anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because, _Colonel_, you just single-handedly blew up a whole parallel universe!" McKay informed him.

"_I… WHAT?!"_

"The universe we just escaped from, you screwed it up so badly that it blew up!"

"Really? Um… sorry?"

"You think sorry is gonna cover it?! Next time think before you go blowing things up!" complained McKay.

Scully wondered why Sheppard was in a tree. "Why is he in a tree while we're down here?"

McKay sent her a side-glance. "Why? Would you rather be a tree?"

Scully scowled. "No. I was just wondering why he ended up in a tree."

Sheppard heard her over McKay's radio. "_So was I! Why do I have to be in a tree?"_

"Because the Starplate in this universe probably got slightly unbalanced as the other universe _blew up_ and because _you caused it_ it malfunctioned slightly and put you in a tree."

"Great. Well I'm not staying up here so I guess I better climb down."

"Sir, the tree trunk seems very smooth without any hand holds and the trees are pretty tall," pointed out Mills.

"Lieutenant Mills?!"

"Yes sir."

"_What the…? When did you get here?"_ asked Sheppard.

"Dr Weir sent my team through the parallel universe machine back on Atlantis to find you and your team," explained Mills.

"Oh. Well at the moment there's only half of my team and an FBI agent here... assuming Scully's still there."

"She is," said McKay. "Still not looking very happy though."

Scully was in fact very unhappy. She was, by the looks of things_ still_ not in her universe and when she did get back she was going to have an angry partner and an impossibly hard case summary to deal with.

"_Don't blame her. __I'm __not very happy and weird stuff happens to my daily."_

McKay sighed. "Well you're in a tree, I didn't really expect you to be singing the Joy Song."

"Don't you mean Song of Joy?"

"No. The Joy Song. You know- _I've got the joy joy joy joys down in my heart. Where?_ You know, that one."

"_No, I __don't__ know that one. That was one of the weirdest songs I have ever heard and you only sang one line!"_

"It's only got ten lines in the song," Mills told him, earning a funny look from Scully.

"You've heard it?" asked McKay in surprise.

Mills shrugged. "Yeah."

"I found the err…" Sergeant Amy West trailed off not wanting to say Starplate.

"_The Starplate?"_ asked Sheppard.

"Yes."

"Ah, about time," said McKay and picked it up, accidentally pointing it at Sheppard's tree.

A blue beam shot out of it, hitting Sheppard's tree.

McKay's radio immediately burst to life.

"Ahhhhh!"

"_Ow! Crap!"_

"Bloody hell!"

"_YOU'RE CRUSHING MY ARM!!"_

"_Oh sorry! Ahhh! I'm falling!"_

Scully stared up at the tree and frowned as someone fell out but their arm was grabbed by someone else before they could fall too far.

McKay gave a long drawn out sigh. "Carson, I wouldn't have thought you'd volunteer to go out of Atlantis."

"_I didn't __volunteer__ Rodney. I was in the room and the device went wild!"_ Beckett sounded panicked; well he _was_ dangling from a tree.

Sheppard's voice cut across any complaints Beckett was about to make. _"Beckett, find some hand holds and hold on, you're gonna pull my arm off!"_

"_Hand holds? This is the smoothest bloody tree I've ever seen!"_

"_Just do it!"_ snapped Sheppard.

Beckett attempted to cling to the tree. _"I think I'm okay."_

"_Good,"_ said Sheppard, but before he could let go of Beckett's arm the doctor slipped and McKay watched as Sheppard was pulled out of the tree and the two stopped with a jerk.

"_Ow!"_ yelled Sheppard. _"My leg's stuck!"_

McKay rolled his eyes.

Scully was looking at the tree next to them; something had just crawled out of its branches. It had a long tail, pincers and a bright orange underbelly. It looked like some sort of mutant bug. It was crawling across the tree to Sheppard and Beckett. Scully pointed at it.

"What's that?" she asked.

McKay saw it. "Ohhh no."

The bug put one foot on Sheppard's head. Sheppard slowly looked up and saw the bug, which grabbed hold of his hair in its pincers. Sheppard's reaction was fully audible from the ground.

"_AHHHHH!!"_ yelled Sheppard waving his free arm around in an effort to knock it off. _"Get it off! Get it off!"_

He movement immediately caused both him and Beckett to start swinging. Beckett hadn't seen the bug and was yelling at Sheppard to stop banging him against the tree. Scully found the whole scene very amusing. Who would have though a military colonel would react like that to a _bug_!

McKay, however, was not laughing.

"Sheppard calm down! You're not even hitting it! You're hitting Carson into the tree instead!"

_"IT'S ON MY HEAD!! GET IT OFF!"_

McKay held his radio away from his ear.

"_Ow! What's on your head? Ow! Stop that!" _Beckett was also panicking.

Lt Mills didn't seem to know what to do.

Scully was struggling not to laugh. Of all her life of seeing people with fears of bugs she'd never seen anything like that. To be fair, it was a pretty big bug.

It's tail swayed infront of Beckett's face.

"_Please say I didn't just see that!" _pleaded Beckett. _"Ow! You swung me into the tree again!"_

"_I don't care!"_ Sheppard was desperately trying to knock it off his head.

"Yes you did just see that," confirmed McKay. "Help him get it off before he accidentally kills you both!"

Beckett, unfortunately, also didn't seem to like the bug. _"Don't drop it on me!"_

_"I just want to get rid of it! Get it off!"_

Scully stared up at the swinging pair. The bug hadn't moved and appeared to be hanging on to Sheppard's hair for dear life.

"What _is_ it?" Scully asked McKay, still amused.

"It's an iratus bug and it's **not** funny," snapped McKay. Sheppard heard him through the radio.

_"Of course it's not funny! IT'S ON MY HEAD!!"_

"_Ouch!"_ yelled Beckett as he was swung into the tree. _"Calm down before we fall!"_

_"Calm down?! I HAVE AN IRATUS BUG ON MY HEAD!!"_

Scully started to snigger; it had to be one of the funniest things she had ever seen. McKay turned to her.

"It's not funny!" he repeated.

_"Who's laughing?"_ complained Beckett, still panicking.

"_YES_," came a triumphant yell over the radio.

Scully looked up and saw the bug sailing through the air. Sheppard scrabbled to one-handedly take the safety off his P90 and fired at the bug until it fell down to the planet's surface in a sprinkle of bug.

This was shortly followed by a series of snapping-branch noises.

"_Oh help,"_ whimpered Beckett.

The two of them half fell half slid down the tree as they tried to hold on to the smooth bark. Beckett tripped at the bottom and fell froward and Sheppard rolled and ended up flat on his back looking dazed. McKay glared at him.

"Finished your panic attack yet?"

Sheppard glared right back. "Once you've hung upside down from a tree with an iratus bug on his head and stayed calm, _then _you can tease me for that!"

Mills looked confused. "I thought iratus bugs didn't live in trees."

Sheppard picked himself off the floor. "I guess we're not back yet."

**A/N**: I had to do that. I just _had_ to. Oh and because of it I'm making up a little challenge for fun, it's called… 'When Sheppard gets an iratus bug on his head' I'd love to see what other people can come up with! Send me a message if you try it or know someone else that's already done something similar.

And for those people who are still wondering what the Joy Song is, here's the words…

_I've got the joy joy joy joys down in my heart. Where?_

_Down in my heart. Where?_

_Down in my heart._

_I've got the joy joy joy joys down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart today._

_And if the devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tac. Ow!_

_Sit on a tac. Ow!_

_Sit on a tac!_

_And if the devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tac. Ow! Sit on a tac today._

And if you want to annoy someone you repeat that over and over and over and over until the annoyed person hits you.


	9. Chapter 9: Two Universes

A/N: Okay, sorry this is so late A/N: Okay, sorry this is so late. Anyway, that 'When Sheppard gets an Iratus Bug on his head' challenge was a challenge made by me for you guys to write a short story on the topic… I must have worded that badly 'cause I didn't get a single reply for that challenge!

Thanks for the great reviews and I'll try to post quicker!

**CHAPTER NINE: TWO UNIVERSES**

Weir watched Zelenka as he tried to get the Parallel Universe machine to work for him again.

"Can you tell what's wrong with it?" she asked.

"No," complained Zelenka. "It won't react to anything I do!"

"So you don't know what happened? Will the machine that it sends people to in the other universe be doing the same?" questioned Weir.

"I don' t think so. This appears to be the master machine that controls the machines in other universes, I think another universe must have been damaged to make it do something like this!"

Weir stared at the silent and inactive machine. "Remind me, what_ is_ it doing?"

"Nothing I tell it to! I had just figured out that it has a life signs detector build into it that _should_ be able to pick up SGA-1 and SGA-8's locator signals! From what there I could get it to change the settings so it connects to that universe, but now it won't recognise any of my commands!"

The machine flashed and let out a short beep. Weir looked at it wearily.

"Is it safe?"

Zelenka looked exasperated. "I've no way of knowing. It could repeat what it did before any time for all I know!"

Weir didn't like the sound of that.

"Radek, I'm sorry but unless you can assure me that it's not going to endanger you or anyone else on the base you're going to have to take it to the Alpha site and work on it there."

Zelenka looked at her for a minute. 'I can't promise that it won't be dangerous."

Weir nodded. "I'll send Lorne's team with you."

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Sheppard watched McKay examine SGA-8's remote-like machine that was supposed to get them back to their own universe.

McKay was muttering to himself.

"This is meant to provide a straight link back to our universe? I don't think so. Unless… yes, tied with the Starplate it might work, but if it didn't and it damaged the Starplate…" McKay grabbed his scanner and began scanning the Starplate and remote. "No, the Starplate shouldn't get damaged by that, but it still wouldn't create a path back to our universe. Maybe if I tried… no that would definitely overload my scanner. Fine then. Stupid machine."

Scully was watching McKay work; she had also noticed that it was starting to go dark.

Sheppard was losing interest in McKay's work, he didn't like standing under the trees; there could be more bugs…

"McKay, are you actually getting anywhere with that?" asked Sheppard.

McKay glared at him. "Of course I am, it's just not working perfectly. We've already jumped to a couple of different universes, further away from ours, these are made for a straight there and back trip between two universes."

"Yeah, well don't forget we still need to take Scully back to her universe," Sheppard reminded him.

"What? I can't possibly sent this thing so it sends us to one universe and her to another!" complained McKay.

Scully was alarmed. "I am not staying here! Or in your crazy universe for that matter!"

McKay glared at her. "Well I can't get this thing to connect to two separate machines! Wait… that would narrow down the power consumption if it didn't have to narrow down the usually billion number of machines it can connect to to just one; it definitely would use less power. That might just work…"

Sheppard raise an eyebrow, and was about to comment when he saw Iratus bugs crawling up more then one of the trees, too many to shoot so Sheppard just watched them very carefully, with his P90 ready. Fortunately Mills and his team had been in the Atlantis mission since year one and understood exactly what an Iratus Bug was and why Sheppard hated them so much.

McKay hadn't even noticed the bugs and was continuing to mutter to himself. "If I were to use_ two_ machines to connect it to, it would lower the power consumption considerably, my scanner might even work as more power now… hmmm, it would work but it would still overload the scanner."

"Can you get me back to my universe?" asked Scully and she wasn't planning on taking no for an answer.

"I might. Sheppard, I need your scanner," called McKay clicking his fingers and holding out his hand.

"Will it help get us off this planet quicker?" questioned Sheppard hopefully.

"Probably," replied McKay.

Sheppard handed over his scanner.

McKay immediately started playing around with the Starplate, two scanners and remote-like machine.

"Okay, you might wan to stand back a bit," McKay told Scully.

Scully wearily backed off.

McKay pressed a button on the remote-like machine and quickly also backed off. Sheppard's scanner exploded into many tiny pieces. The Starplate and the remote started glowing. All the Iratus Bugs turned to the noise.

"McKay!" said Sheppard angrily.

"Did you know it was going to do that?" inquired Scully.

"Yes," answered McKay. "The Starplate now has enough power with Mills's remote thing to send us to either our or Scully universe. I don't know which, it might send some of us to one and the rest of us to the other but the Starplate system is now locked so it should always send us to one or the other."

"Great," commented Mills. "But you just attracted the attention of all the bugs."

"What?" asked McKay, looking up and seeing all the bugs. "Where did they come from?!"

Sheppard kept his P90 aimed at the nearest one. "As soon as it started to go dark they came out."

"And you just drew their attention to us," repeated Mills.

"Uh, oops. Um… everyone come stand infront of the Starplate, lets hope we all end up in our own universe because this is taking a lot of the power from the Starplate system."

They all grouped up infront of the Starplate. McKay held it out infront of him, pointed it at himself and the rest of the group and pressed a button on the remote. They were all scoped up in the blue beam of the Starplate.

**A/N:** I still don't have names for two of Mills team… please give me suggestions!


	10. Chapter 10: The Alpha Site

**A/N:** Can't remember when I posted the last chapter, so this must be late, sorry! Thanks for the great reviews!

**CHAPTER TEN: THE ALPHA SITE**

The Alpha site was in chaos. They'd lost count of how man times the wraith had found the site and they'd had to re-locate but this time they'd been caught completely by surprise. There was a wraith hive ship above the planet and wraith were beaming down on to the planet, lots of people had already been culled.

Zelenka was in complete panic mode, he and Lorne were lugging the Parallel Universe machine away form any darts, the wraith had succeeded in culling the rest of Lorne's team.

It didn't help when the cursed machine started flashing again. Lorne completely ignored it and fired his P90 at a wraith while still helping Zelenka hold the flashing device.

"We gotta get out of here, doc!" Lorne yelled over the noise of the chaos around them. "That machine's attracting their attention!"

Lorne seriously wished they could run _to_ the Stargate, rather than away from it, but unfortunately the wraith had used the old trick of dialling in to prevent escape. The Parallel Universe Machine sent a blue beam o light behind them.

Lorne and Zelenka had no choice but to ignore it and keep running.

Sheppard, McKay, Scully, Beckett and Dr Frederick Tatum of SGA-8 found themselves in the midst of a very panicked looking battle against the wraith.

Sheppard swore as he recognised it as the Alpha site. A scream to the right drew all their attention as a wraith finished sucking the life out of someone.

Scully's eyes widened in alarm. McKay and Dr Tatum both froze. Sheppard jumped in to action and shot the wraith with his P90.

"What did you do that for?!" squeaked McKay as a dart flew overhead. "We don't even know this is our universe!"

"You said we'd either go to our universe or Scully's!" retorted Sheppard, open firing at the dart.

"I know what I said!"

"Well, is this our universe?"

McKay ducked a stun blast and checked his scanner. "Yes!"

"Good! Now get to the gate!" ordered Sheppard.

"The wraith have already dialled in!" exclaimed Dr Tatum in a panicked voice.

"Then run for the trees!" yelled Sheppard as the group scattered to avoid a darts culling beam.

Dr Tatum ran after McKay who was running for the trees as more wraith beam down to the planet from darts.

The Alpha site was a mess of terrified scientists and doctors who were trying to rescue as many supplies from the base as possible and military personnel trying to help them get out and fight wraith at the same time.

Sheppard practically dragged Scully to the trees. Scully was still trying to wrap her brain around the impossible scene infront of her.

She found her feet and Sheppard shoved her in to the trees.

Sheppard turned to her. "Run as fast as you can find somewhere to hide and whatever you do, _don't get caught_. I'll find you later."

Scully didn't much like the idea of being abandoned on a different planet with aliens that really could suck the life out of someone with it's hand.

"Where are you going?" she demanded.

"I'm going to try and get as many people to safety as possible." Sheppard told her and ran off before she could argue.

Scully decided to once again do as she was told, getting stuck on a spaceship with life sucking aliens again was not exactly high on her list of things to do.

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Mulder, Ronon, Teyla stared as Lt Mills, Sergeant West and Captain Lance Harris materialised infront of them from a blue beam from the Starplate.

"Who are you and where's Scully?!" demanded Mulder noting that they wore same clothing as the other team.

Mills stared at him. "I'm Lieutenant George Mills, this is Captain Lance Harris and Sergeant Amy West. And don't know anyone called Scully."

Mulder looked very pissed. "Oh don't you? Well she's the person who your dumb ass military colonel got stuck on an alien spaceship and then sent to a parallel universe."

Mills sighed and looked 'round at the three of them. Teyla looked exasperated, and Ronon looked equally annoyed as Mulder.

"Yeah, she'd be the red headed FBI agent, right?" asked Mills.

"Where is she?" asked Mulder.

Mills shrugged. "I think she's in our universe with McKay, Sheppard and Dr Tatum."

Captain Lance Harris turned to him. "Tatum's with McKay?!"

"Well neither of them are here… oh crap! Yes they are!"

Sergeant West shook her head sadly. "Poor Sheppard."

"What?" asked Ronon.

"McKay and Tatum don't get on," explained Mills.

"Actually, they hate each other," corrected Captain Harris. "They met briefly at the SGC and haven't liked each other since."

"Whatever," complained Mulder. "What about Scully."

"If she's not here she's safe on Atlantis. McKay will get her back here in no time," said Mills.

It took a lot to get Mulder to stare in disbelief, but that just about did it.

"Atlantis?" he asked.

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Sheppard woke up lying flat on his back on a hiveship. He opened his eyes to find Scully leaning over him and glared up at her.

"I said _don't_ get caught!"

"Tell those two to stop arguing!" complained Scully.

Sheppard sat up and turned around to see McKay and Tatum.

"Ohhh, so suddenly this is my fault!" grumbled Tatum.

"Well if you hadn't stopped!" complained McKay.

"My shoe came untied!" defended Tatum.

"You should have kept running anyway! Now you've got us both caught!" snapped McKay.

"It was okay when you dropped your 9mm and went back for it! **That's** what got us caught!" argued Tatum.

"That's a gun! Guns are needed!" shot back McKay.

"Then you shouldn't have dropped it!" retorted Tatum.

"I didn't _mean_ to! At least I stopped to do something important!" sneered McKay.

"I could've tripped up!"

"Shut up you two," said Sheppard.

He was ignored.

"Oooh you could've tripped up!" mocked McKay. "Well by stopping you got us caught and now we are going to have the life sucked out of us by the wraith! Is that what you wanted? Hmmm?"

"We wouldn't be in this mess in the first place if you hadn't gotten yourself stuck in another universe!"

"You didn't have to come after us!"

"Next time I won't!" retorted Tatum.

"Shut up!" snapped Sheppard. "McKay, you're going to work with Tatum to get that door open and you are not going to argue!"

"You know you're asking the impossible?" inquired McKay.

"You **will** stop arguing. If you don't, I swear, I will find someway to get hold of a stunner and stun you both! Even if it means I have to drag the two of you back to Atlantis!" exclaimed Sheppard.

McKay glared at him. "I meant opening the door."

Sheppard shrugged. "You have to do that too."

Scully looked at Sheppard. "They've been arguing about how impossible that is since they woke up."

"I thought so," commented Sheppard.

Wraith cam around the corner holding Zelenka, who was conscious and looking terrified. They opened the cell and threw him in.

McKay threw up his hands in exasperation. "Great! A second idiot to come up with dumb ideas that will never work."

"Just because you don't think they will work, doesn't mean they can't!" retorted Tatum.

"No arguing!" snapped Sheppard.

"Hey! I would like to remind you that you've just asked us to do the impossible so therefore we have the right to argue!" argued McKay.

"No you don't, and you will get that door opened!" retorted Sheppard.

"Didn't I just say I can't? We've been in this position before, I can't open a wraith cell door from the inside! What am I mean to use anyway? My invisible scanner?" snapped McKay.

"How about your visible scanner?" asked Sheppard.

"The wraith took it!" complained McKay.

"Improvise!"

"There's nothing to improvise with!"

Scully sighed, but she simply couldn't resist commenting. "No arguing!"

Sheppard and McKay turned around in surprise. McKay snorted.

"Yeah Sheppard," he said, adopting a child-like mocking voice.

Scully rolled her eyes and wished for the thousandth time that she was dreaming.

**A/N:** I was starting to get confused with all those universes, so it should be slightly simpler now.


	11. Chapter 11: Problems

A/N: I made up the small wraith cargo ship in this story A/N: I made up the small wraith cargo ship in this story. Oh well.

**CHAPTER ELEVEN: PROBLEMS**

Weir almost screamed in frustration as she yet again listened to the last desperate call from the Alpha site before the wraith blocked off the gate.

The Alpha site had been found again, couldn't anything go right that day?

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Mills watched as Mulder used his bazooka to shoot down another wraith dart; Teyla had filed him in on the events before he'd arrived. Apparently Mulder had also bazookered down five trees before Teyla had managed to convince him that the wraith could make you see things that aren't there.

The FBI agent seemed in a very bad mood, understandably since he hadn't seen his partner in hours. Unfortunately Mills wasn't sure if he was going to be able to convince the man that Atlantis existed, he was going to have to try and explain that.

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McKay let out a groan of frustration as the all-to-familiar sense of the wraith ship starting up its engines trembled through the hive.

"What was that?" asked Scully, who was now almost happy she wasn't dreaming; if her brain could come up with events and people like this she would have to consider taking herself to a mental hospital.

"The hives engines starting off, we're moving," McKay told her.

Maybe being slightly mental wouldn't be too bad. Dreaming would be better. "Where to?"

"Don't know," Sheppard replied.

"It doesn't matter where we're going," broke in McKay. "We're screwed anyway.

"As optimistic as ever," muttered Dr Tatum and Sheppard had to agree with him.

"Oh come on! It's not as if we're gonna escape! We're on a moving wraith hive ship with the Daedalus currently on Earth!" complained McKay.

Sheppard frowned. "I thought it was on it's way?"

"It got delayed," Tatum told him.

"Bringing me back to how completely screwed we are," said McKay.

Sheppard sent him a glare. "Think about it McKay. You say that at least twice a week and we're not dead yet."

McKay rolled his eyes and glared back. "Which, considering how many crazy suicidal missions you've been on is a miracle! Well we just ran out of miracles!"

"We'll get out of this too," insisted Sheppard. "Stop saying we're gonna die, you're scaring Zelenka."

Scully glanced at the thirds scientist; he'd been very quiet and looked quite pale. She guessed he hadn't been in this situation as much as the others.

Scully thought that Sheppard might have been able to convince McKay that they weren't going to die if the wraith hadn't turned up at the cell door.

The wraith opened the door and looked around. "Who is your leader?"

Scully saw Sheppard sigh and mutter. "Here we go again."

"I am," he said.

The wraith grabbed him by his arm and hauled him out of the cell.

"We're all dead," said McKay.

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Sheppard was surprised to see the wraith queen already in the room when he was thrown in. She had the Parallel Universe Machine infront of her. They wraith stayed at the door.

"What is this devices purpose?" the queen hissed.

"Don't know," Sheppard told her.

"You will tell me," the queen commanded, coming closer.

"I've never seen it before in my life," insisted Sheppard, he was really sick of getting questioned.

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Doctor Beckett waited until the Alpha site was completely silent before venturing out from the trees; he winced at the mess of what was left of the Alpha site. He saw Lorne also coming out of the trees.

"Major!" he called.

Lorne whipped around, P90 coming up and saw Beckett and relaxed.

"Hey doc. I wasn't expecting to see you around," commented Lorne.

"Me, Colonel Sheppard, Rodney, Dr Tatum and someone from another universe came back through that dangerous machine and found ourselves getting attacked by the wraith," explained Beckett.

Lorne frowned. "Are they still here?"

Beckett shook his head. "I saw the Colonel get taken and then I think I saw a beam pass over Rodney and Tatum too."

"We better get back to Atlantis," pointed out Lorne, excepting the news. "Dr Weir will want a report and we need to find out where that hive went."

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McKay panicked as they once again heard the wraith approaching the cell.

"Oh no."

"They're coming back," observed Scully.

Wraith walked down the corridor towards them.

"Why have they come back without Sheppard?" questioned Scully, musing the fact that she was actually starting to like these people.

McKay didn't look happy. "Because he didn't give them the information the needed so they've come back for someone else."

The wraith entered the cell and grabbed McKay. His eyes went wide.

"What?! Why me?"

Typically the wraith didn't answer and just dragged him off. Scully got the impression that although McKay had obviously been in one of the spaceships lots of times he hadn't been taken out of the cell by wraith all too often.

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McKay was relatively relieved when he saw Shepard still alive and not being fed on. The Colonel was kneeling infront of the Wraith Queen. When the queen saw McKay she released her hold on Sheppard's mind and he stumbled back to his feet and took a step backwards.

"Hi McKay," greeted Sheppard.

"Uh, hi," replied McKay noting that the Parallel Universe Machine was in the room, that couldn't be good.

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As he'd predicted, Lt Mills was having a hard time convincing Mulder that Scully was actually in the lost city of Atlantis and was safe. The man was damn stubborn and very mistrusting.

The rest of his team struggled to get the Starplate in work. Mills knew it was a lost cause; they were going to have to wait for rescue. Tatum had been the only one on his team with the ATA gene and he and McKay, who had the remote-like-thing, had gone back to their universe. Lucky people.

"How can I trust you?" demanded Mulder.

There he went again. Questioning everything. Mills stopped himself from groaning in annoyance.

"If you can't, then just be quiet about it until McKay brings your partner back," replied Mills, giving up.

Mulder glared at him. "How do I know she is coming back?"

Mills did groan in annoyance.

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Scully stared in complete amazement as the same screeching alarm from the other ship sounded at the same time McKay and Sheppard came running around the corner with a whole pile of weapons and the Parallel Universe Machine.

"Stand back," ordered Sheppard, rigging something that looked suspiciously like C4 explosive to the cell door. Scully backed off.

The other scientist, Dr Tatum they'd called him, looked very surprised. "What? How…?"

"Teyla told McKay to keep a spare knife strapped to his arm and the wraith didn't find it," explained Sheppard briefly. "We need to move."

Somehow they managed to get the third scientist, Zelenka, McKay had called him, it sounded like a Czech name to Scully, they somehow managed to get him to move at a reasonable pace. The guy looked plain terrified.

Sheppard somehow led them to another prison cell, where they freed a whole group of scientists, doctors and soldiers who had been culled form the Alpha site. The rest of Lorne's team included.

A group of wraith cam up behind them and Sheppard yelled a quick order to the military people and tossed them their weapons. The wraith were soon taken care of.

Scully was feeling overwhelmed by all the events of the day, but still wasn't impressed when they came to yet another small type of wraith ship.

"No," she said. "No more spaceships."

"Too bad," Sheppard told her. "It's the only way out."

"I am not getting pulled, beamed or what ever you want to call it into another spaceship!" defied Scully surprised she still had enough energy to argue.

"This one's different, you don't have to be stored in the buffer," Sheppard replied.

"Yeah," added McKay. "This is a small wraith cargo ship, not a dart."

"Don't care," grumbled Scully.

"Just get in the damn ship!" ordered Sheppard irritably. "_Now_."

At least there was a sort of decent entrance to this ship, a kind of door.

"Fine," she muttered, it wasn't like she wanted to stay on the larger ship anyway.

"McKay, Tatum you guys too. Sorry, but I'm gonna have to get the rest of you in the buffer," apologised Sheppard.

Scully reluctantly followed the three of them on to the ship. Sheppard started it up and scoped the remaining people and Parallel universe Machine up in the buffer. There was information streaming across the ship and Scully couldn't help but notice that it wasn't in English, or any other Earth language for that matter. Hopefully Sheppard understood it.

The little ship shot out of the larger one.

"McKay…" said Sheppard.

"What?" asked McKay.

"Little help here."

"You need _my_ help?" questioned McKay in obvious surprise. "I thought you said you could fly anything?"

"I can, with _English_!" complained Sheppard. "Can you translate that?"

Scully was not impressed. "You don't know what that says?!"

"I was never very good at other languages," Sheppard answered. "McKay?"

"It would take time that we don't have, Colonel. So no I can't translate it in time. You flew the dart without English."

"I'd flown a dart before! I have no idea what half these controls are!" replied Sheppard.

Scully felt like repeatedly hitting her head on something hard.

**A/N**: hope you enjoyed that and please review!


	12. Chapter 12: Wormhole Physics

**A/N:** Wow, chapter twelve?! This is my longest story yet!

**CHAPTER TWELVE: WORMHOLE PHYSICS**

"Are there any wraith left?" Mills asked Teyla, wondering if Mulder had killed them all. Mills didn't know either Teyla or Ronon very well but her did know Teyla could sense the wraith, who didn't?

Teyla nodded. "I believe there are two darts left. They have retreated up into space."

"Cowards," growled Ronon.

Mills was a bit intimidated by the Satedan so wisely chose not to point out that Mulder had killed most of the wraith.

Speaking of whom…

The FBI man was looking increasingly annoyed as his partner's absence stretched out. Maybe having Ronon there wasn't a bad thing; if Scully didn't return soon Mills wasn't at all sure Mulder wouldn't start taking hostages _and_ he had a bazooka.

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Scully quickly learnt that Sheppard was a good pilot, despite the lack of English they were barrelling towards a planet, at over 200 miles an hour, that McKay claimed had a Stargate (what ever that was) on it. Not to mention all the other wraith ships chasing and shooting at them.

Scully had a nasty thought.

"Won't we burn up in the planet's atmosphere?" she asked.

"No," replied McKay. "Because of the alien material and other scientific reasons, that I won't bother explaining because you won't understand a word of it, we'll pass into the atmosphere without a problem."

Scully was insulted. "I'm sure I would perfectly understand the science behind it!"

McKay snorted. "I doubt it."

Scully's angry answer was cut off as Sheppard banked hard right to avoid dart fire. Scully tried, and failed, to stay on her feet. She, McKay and Tatum ended up in a pile on the left side of the cargo ship.

"Could've done with a warning!" complained McKay as they all got back to their feet.

"Sorry," replied Sheppard, frowning at a flashing control in confusion.

"It might mean we just entered the planet's atmosphere," suggested Tatum., noticing Sheppard's confusion.

"Oh yeah, because that's so likely," grumbled McKay. "We don't need to be told that, that's what the huge window infront of you is for!"

"What the hell?" commented Sheppard as a similar control on the other side of the control console flashed too. "McKay can you work on translating this?!"

"If you didn't keep throwing s across the ship I might try!" answered McKay.

"I can't help it!"

The Wraith Cargo-Ship suddenly dipped dramatically as a dart succeeded in shooting it.

"Sheppard! We're falling!" yelled McKay.

"I know! This is the worst damn ship I've ever flown! Why is that frikkin control flashing?!"

Sheppard was getting noticeably frustrated as the ship plummeted towards the planet's surface. Scully was suitably freaked out.

"Sheppard, you're going to kill us all!" cried McKay.

Sheppard chose not to answer and managed to pull the ship up into a dive rather than an all out fall. The wraith ship skimmed across the ground before hitting a tree and coming to a dead stop. The ships engines died completely and one side of the ship collapsed in on itself.

Scully climbed out the top of what was left of the cargo ship after McKay and Tatum and noticed Sheppard climbing out the front and noting how close he had come to being splattered into the tree.

McKay was studying the back of the ship. "Hmm, luckily these cargo ships are built differently to the darts so I should be able to take the buffer back to Atlantis and rematerialise the people and Parallel Universe Machine there because this ship has absolutely no power left."

He detached the buffer from the ship, Scully thought it was surprisingly small. There were two huge explosions near by.

"Crap! The hive's firing on us!" realised Sheppard. "McKay, where's the gate?"

"That way," McKay told him, pointing in the same direction as one of the explosions. "Luckily you managed to crash very close to it."

"Lead the way," muttered Scully, having doubts about this 'Stargate'.

They had only got roughly a hundred meters before the cargo ship exploded and the hive stopped firing.

"Must've thought we were still in there," noted Sheppard.

"Luckily we weren't," mumbled McKay and Tatum gave him a look that clearly meant; _duh_!

McKay ignored him and walked boldly out of the trees towards the Stargate DHD. Scully didn't see anything star or gate like, but she did see a huge crater just in front of McKay, hadn't he seen it?

Sheppard frowned. "Oh crap! McKay, that could be a problem."

McKay looked up to give an undoubtably sarcastic remark when he realised that the Stargate was not infront of him and saw the crater and the Stargate lying down in the middle of it.

He stared speechless for a moment; how could he have not seen that?! "Oh! I, uh… I saw that of course. I'm dialling Atlantis to see if the gate's the right way up."

Scully gave a sigh. "That's the 'Stargate'? That round thing?"

"Yes," Sheppard told her. "Except it's meant to be up vertically."

McKay dialled and Scully stared as a huge fountain of water came out of the 'Stargate'; and was sucked back in again, forming a puddle in the circle.

"It's the right way up," commented Tatum in relief.

"Ten out of ten for observing the obvious," muttered McKay, earning yet another nasty glare.

They walked over to the gate, Scully trailing behind wearily. Sheppard studied the gate.

"Which side's the top?" he asked.

McKay squinted at the large ring. "I don't know. I can't see which chevrons are lit up because it's covered in so much dust! And it was obviously thrown up into the air by the explosion so almost definitely spun in mid air."

Sheppard sighed. "Great. Put in your IDC and I'll go first. I'll radio you and tell you."

Scully was confused. "What's going on?"

"Well," said McKay. "Sheppard told you the Stargate's meant to be vertical, and the one on Atlantis is. But we don't know which side of this gate is the top and if we accidentally step through the top we'll come flying out the top of the Atlantis gate, which, as you can see, the gate's quite tall."

"Wait, you're going to jump into that?!" asked Scully, staring at the puddle.

McKay stared at her like she was crazy. "Of course we are. That's a wormhole to the Atlantis gate."

Scully opened her mouth to question that but Sheppard cut across her.

"It's a wormhole, deal with it. We need to get off this planet before the wraith realise that we're still alive and have activated the gate," Sheppard told her. "McKay, have you entered your IDC?"

"Yes," McKay told him, talking over Scully, who was trying to question wormhole physics.

"Alright, see you later." Sheppard picked a random side of the gate and stepped into the 'wormhole'.

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Weir stared at the active Stargate.

"Receiving Doctor McKay's IDC," announced Chuck.

Weir stared expectantly at the Stargate. Doctor Beckett had told her that McKay, Sheppard and a stranger were back in their universe and Weir was pretty sure their was an interesting explanation to why McKay had dragged his team to the Parallel Universe Machine before their mission in the first place.

She nodded to Chuck and turned back to the gate… just in time to see Sheppard come feet first out of the top of the Stargate.

How the hell had he managed…?!

"Oh my god," said Weir as Sheppard covered his head with his arms as he crashed to the floor and rolled to a stop on his back. "Medical team to the gate room!"

She ran down the stairs to Sheppard as the Colonel mumbled into his radio. "McKay, use the other side of the gate." Before he lost consciousness.

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McKay frowned at Sheppard's radio message. "Out of all the sides, he just had to choose the top, didn't he?"

Tatum just shrugged. Scully continued to stare at the 'Stargate'. Getting on an alien spaceship was one thing, but then there was stepping into an alien puddle that was supposedly a wormhole that would take her to the lost city of Atlantis. It just wasn't going to happen.

"Let's go," suggested McKay, walking over to the opposite side of the gate to the side Sheppard had used carrying the wraith cargo-ship buffer.

Scully walked after him and examined the puddle again. "I am not going to step into that puddle."

"It's perfectly safe," McKay assured her. "We use it daily. Once you step in to the wormhole it simply breaks up your molecules, sends them across the galaxy and reassembles you at the other side."

Scully was alarm; that sounded painful.

"I refuse to step into that!" she insisted.

"Would you rather stay here?" demanded McKay.

"No," complained Scully and heard Dr Tatum come up behind her.

She turned around just in time to see the scientist's hands shoot out as he pushed her into the wormhole. Scully braced herself.

**A/N:** please review, I love to know what people think of my stories… which is obvious from all my other Author Notes.


	13. Chapter 13: Atlantis!

**CHAPTER THRITEEN: ATLANTIS**

Scully stared around the gate room in amazement. It was a truly awesome sight, but before she'd even managed to take it in properly McKay came feet first out of the gate, effectively kicking her in the back. Tatum came through shortly after.

Scully irritably got back to her feet and saw a woman with dark brown hair coming down a flight of stairs towards her.

"I'm Doctor Elizabeth Weir leader of the Atlantis expedition," she introduced herself with a smile.

"I'm Special Agent Dana Scully from the FBI," Scully replied and then glanced around again. "I'm not from your universe though."

"Yes, I know," Weir told her. "I'm sorry this had to happen to you, I will see to it that you may be sent back to your universe."

Scully was about to thank her for that, liking Dr Weir's unquestionably diplomatic personality, when McKay rudely cut across her.

"Whatever, she means she's going to make _me_ work to get you back home, but that's not the point. Hows Sheppard?" he asked.

In her awe Scully had almost forgotten about the Colonel.

Weir winced. "He's in surgery at the moment."

McKay nodded and began to walk off, Scully noticed Weir narrow her eyes.

"McKay," she said in a stern tone.

The scientist turned. "What?"

"You're not going anywhere for the moment, go and wait in my office. I'll be there in a minute to discuss with you exactly why the four of you were down in Zelenka's lab looking at the Parallel Universe Machine instead of heading off to your search for Stargates' for the gate bridge in the first place."

McKay's look was somewhere between guilt and annoyance. "I'm sure that can wait."

"He's in surgery," repeated Weir pointedly. "Go wait in my office."

"Fine," snapped McKay and walked off up the stairs.

Scully realised that, despite their arguing, McKay and Sheppard were actually quite good friends.

Dr Weir turned to her. "I'll get you a spare room where you can stay until you can go back to your universe, but you're welcome to explore the city."

The implied part being; 'but please don't touch anything'.

"Thanks," said Scully. "Do you know how long it will be before you can send me back?"

"I'm sorry, I have no idea, I know this isn't what you wanted to hear but the machine was at our Alpha site which, as you would know, was attacked by a wraith hive ship. It might be a while before we can even find it," Weir explained.

Scully smiled. "Dr McKay has it with him, stored in the… _buffer_ of a wraith ship."

That was still difficult to say. Suddenly believing in aliens was not something she found easy. Plus there was no way that she'd ever even admit their existence to Mulder.

Weir looked surprised. "Really? Well then I'll get him to start work on it. Here, I'll show you to that spare room."

Scully cast one more glance at the now puddleless circle (inactive Stargate) and it's room, before following Weir out of the room.

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Mills was positive that if it were possible to shoot daggers out of your eyes while glaring, Mulder would have easily achieved it.

It was now early morning and there was still no sign of Agent Scully. Mills was getting increasingly nervous around Ronon; the Satedan evidentially didn't like either Mulder or being stranded in another universe and he looked like he wanted to shoot someone… possibly Mulder.

Panicked townspeople were glancing terrifiedly up at the sky as they made their way back to their town. Mills exchanged a glance with Harris. There were still two darts out there, somewhere.

"Where is Scully?" demanded Mulder for the thousandth time as he saw Mills looking at him.

"I don't know," admitted Mills truthfully. "Hopefully coming back soon."

"You said that hours ago! Tell me what you've done with her!" ordered Mulder aggressively. He lifted his bazooka threateningly.

That destroyed what little peace the group had had. Ronon stepped forward, gun coming up to point at Mulder, who immediately trained his bazooka on Ronon.

"Ronon!" exclaimed Teyla.

Ronon ignored her. "We don't know where your friend is."

Mills wanted to point out to Ronon that Mulder had a bazooka that could blast them all to dust, but he didn't think it would make a difference, except that Ronon might turn his gun on him instead. This was a mess. Mills wished Sheppard were there, not only did he have the ATA Gene, Ronon _listened_ to him. Exactly how Sheppard had achieved that was beyond Mills.

Mulder meanwhile didn't seem to like Ronon anymore than Ronon liked him.

"If you don't bring Scully back I will arrest you," threatened Mulder.

"Oh, and how are you gonna do that?" challenged Ronon.

"I'm with the FBI," Mulder reminded him, with the implied second sentence of; 'And I have a bazooka.'

"The who?" asked Ronon.

Mulder knocked the safety off the bazooka, assuming Ronon was mocking him.

Mills just knew it wasn't going to end well.

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McKay glared at Zelenka. "There is no way that will work, it hasn't got enough power."

"But you said we have to take that universe you destroyed off it's databank!" complained Zelenka.

"I didn't destroy the universe, Sheppard did," corrected McKay. "And I know what I said, but you can't achieve it by using power that we don't have!"

McKay noticed Scully standing by the door. "Oh, um, hi there."

"Hi," replied Scully coming into the room.

"Uh, I guess you want to know when we can send you to your universe?" guessed McKay.

"More or less," agreed Scully she glanced over at Zelenka and McKay was sure she was noting that he had been rematerialised and no longer looked terrified out of his wits. "So?"

"Actually," spoke up Zelenka. "Because of damaged to another universe…"

"He means the total and utter annulation of another universe," interrupted McKay.

"Yes, because of the destruction of another universe we are having trouble with the machine and are going to remove the universe from it's databank," finished Zelenka.

Scully didn't like the sound of that. "How long will that take?"

McKay shrugged. "Probably days."

"Days?!" exclaimed Scully.

"Yes," agreed Zelenka. "Maybe longer to get it working again afterwards."

McKay saw Scully's frustration at the news. Too bad. Weir had forced him to work on the stupid Parallel Universe Machine instead of waiting in the infirmary for news on Sheppard. It was Scully's problem if she wanted to make a big deal about being stuck in Atlantis for a few days.

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Sheppard woke up in the infirmary in Atlantis. He frowned as he realised he was feeling numb, meaning painkillers. Well, that wasn't good. He focused on sounds around him and heard his heart monitor.

Beep…. beep…. beep….

Damn. Those things were freaking annoying. Whoever decided that injured people needed an irritating beeping in their ear had obvious never had to use one themself.

Beep…. beep…. beep…. beep….

It was already annoying the crap out of him.

Beep…. beep…. beep….

Sheppard wondered briefly what Carson and his infirmary staff would do if he somehow managed to disconnect the stupid machine.

Beep…. beep…. beep…. beep….

He doubted they'd be very impressed, but at least the irritating beeping would stop… unless disconnecting it from him would make it give out that constant beep it made when your heart stopped beating. That would be even worse.

Before he could think of a way to turn it off completely from his bed Sheppard drifted back into unconsciousness.

**A/N:** I was going to put that last paragraph at the start of the next chapter, but I realised that then Sheppard wouldn't be in this chapter at all. So I put it in. Hope you enjoyed it! Please review! :)


	14. Chapter 14: Fraying Tempers

**A/N:** I am _trying_ to keep this slightly serious…... and I'm failing miserably. I think it gets a bit, well, _un_serious in the chapter.

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN: FRAYING TEMPERS**

"Stop it, Ronon!" ordered Teyla. "We don't need to start shooting at each other!"

"He's pointing his weapon at me!" growled Ronon, without lowering his gun or turning his gaze away from Mulder.

"And I'm not going to lower it until you bring Scully back here, _unharmed_!" broke in Mulder.

Mills ignored the conversation and, because he doubted Ronon's weapon was set to stun, he nodded to Sergeant West, who took out the wraith stunner she kept with her in addition to her 9mm and P90.

If he had to get her to stun Mulder, then he would.

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Sheppard woke up again to the sound of his heart monitor.

Beep…. beep…. beep….

He honestly couldn't think of anything more likely to piss him off that he could have woken up to… except possibly McKay. No matter how annoying the beeping could never compare to McKay's constant whining and complaining.

Beep…. beep…. beep…. beep….

That didn't meaning that the monitor wasn't very irritating, though_._ It definitely needed to be turned off. Sheppard cracked open an eye to glare at it.

_Beep…. beep…. beep…._

Shame it wasn't Ancient technology, then he could have tried turning it off with his mind.

Beep…. beep…. beep…. beep….

Sheppard tried to move his left arm to turn it off. His arm wouldn't move. Okaaaay, that wasn't good.

Beep…. beep…. beep….

Damn it! If he couldn't move his arm then he couldn't turn it off! Sheppard tried again… and failed to move his arm. Why wouldn't the damn thing just SHUT UP!

Beep…beep…beep…beep...

Oh great. As he got more frustrated his heart beat faster so now the monitor was beeping faster. Stupid, crappy, frikkin' monitor. Sheppard closed his eyes again and realised he could hear someone talking, it sounded like Scully.

"What are his injuries?" Scully was asking.

Well unless someone else had managed to badly hurt themselves, she was talking about him.

"There's quite a list I'm afraid." That was Beckett. There was no mistaking his accent. "He'd dislocated and broken his left arm in two different places and taken a large chunk of skin off his right arm, he's broken one rib on his left side as well as cracking two, one on his right side is also cracked. He's fractured his left leg as well as taking a chunk of skin off. He luckily only had a mild concussion, I think if he hadn't covered his head with his arms he'd be dead."

Sheppard sighed. Fantastic. That was a long list of injuries. He hated staying in bed for weeks.

Beep…. beep…. beep…

The heart monitor was still irritating the hell out of him and if he had broken his left arm then he definitely couldn't turn it off. Meanwhile, Scully was talking again.

"That is quite a long list," agreed Scully. "Will he recover?"

Beckett sighed. "Yes, I believe he'll make a full recovery, lucky little bugger. Problem is a couple of days after I've cleared him for duty I bet he'll be back again."

Sheppard was insulted and now thoroughly annoyed. Which made his heart monitor beep faster again.

Beep…beep…beep…beep…

That was it! He'd had enough. Sheppard opened his eyes and glared at Beckett. "Will…not."

Okay, that hurt his ribs, but it got Beckett's attention.

"Colonel, you're awake!" Beckett sounded surprised.

"Yeah, hi."

Ouch. Sheppard decided that talking was not good. Two words at a time would have to do.

"How are you feeling?" asked Beckett.

Dumb question. "Fantastic."

"Dr Beckett says you've hurt a few ribs," Scully warned him, raising an eyebrow at his sarcasm.

"I heard."

Not that he'd needed to. Cracked ribs hurt. He wondered how long he'd been unconscious.

"How long…?"

"You've been out for twenty four hours," Beckett explained.

"Great," grumbled Sheppard and then wondered why McKay hadn't managed to send Scully home yet. He was pretty sure her partner would want to know where she was.

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Mulder was unconscious and tied up to a tree, after Sergeant West had stunned him Ronon had taken his bazooka. Fortunately Teyla had decided that they would be better off if she had the bazooka and had made Ronon hand it over.

Mills felt slightly safer with the bazooka with her but he knew that their situation still wasn't good. They had no way of knowing if Mulder had already called his superiors and if the FBI were coming to arrest them all. Mills highly doubted the FBI would be very impressed to find one of their agents missing and the other tied to a tree just outside a town where there were dozens of people missing and everyone else claiming that there had been UFOs'.

"Err, Mills?" asked Harris.

Mills turned to face him. "Yeah?"

"What are we gonna do now?" questioned Harris.

"Well," said Mills, thinking hard and deciding that McKay must've not sent Scully back yet because she'd been killed by wraith. "We could take the Starplate and strategically retreat into the forest."

Harris sniggered. "Just leave the FBI man tied up?"

"Yeah… He's gonna be in a bad mood when he wakes up whether we're here or not, and personally, I'd rather not be. Lets take the Starplate and go wait somewhere else for McKay to remember that we're still here," suggested Mills.

"I doubt Tatum will let him forget," snorted Harris.

"Probably not," agreed Mills then turned to the rest of the group. "Listen up. Because we don't know if Agent Mulder here has called for a whole group of his random FBI friends to come and arrest us, Harris and I have decided that we'd be better off if we grab the Starplate and strategically retreat. So, West, grab the Starplate and lets go."

Ronon gave him a blank look. "What are we doing?"

"We're taking the Starplate and running away before Agent Mulder wakes up," explained Harris.

"We're running away?" asked Ronon.

"Yeah, that's right. If we don't bugger off before Mulder wakes up he's gonna start yelling at us and considering the reason his partner isn't back yet, could well be 'cause the wraith have eaten her I don't wanna be here for that," answered Mills.

"Ronon, it may be the best thing to do," stated Teyla.

"Fine," grumbled Ronon.

The five of them ran off in to the forest, taking Mulder's bazooka with them, and leaving Mulder tied up.

**A/N: **I don't know how I'm going with Lt Mills and his team. Could you please tell me if you like them.


	15. Chapter 15: MYSTERIOUS TAPES

**A/N: **Okay, remember this story is set just after Common Ground and before McKay and Ms Miller, so you haven't seen the first seven episodes of season 3 there are more spoilers in this chapter, just thought I'd let you know.

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN: MYSTERIOUS TAPES**

Weir stared at McKay. "You're telling me that Agent Scully's a sceptic?"

"Definitely. Do you have any idea how long it took us to convince her that aliens are real?" grumbled McKay.

"You convinced her?! Rodney, she's meant to be a sceptic in her universe! You can't just go mucking things up in parallel universes!" complained Weir.

"If we hadn't she probably would have gotten herself eaten by a wraith! Look, I don't know why we're having this conversation, it's too late to do anything about it and I have work to do!" snapped McKay.

Weir raised an eyebrow. "Actually, there is something we can do."

"What?! How?" demanded McKay.

"Well, Earth recently came across some interesting Asgard technology. Colonel Carter was away on a mission at the time so it was sent here via the Daedalus, you were meant to be looking at it, but you've been quite busy lately so Radek has had it," Weir told him.

McKay waved his hand impatiently, ignoring the fact that it had only been sent to him because Carter was busy. "And? What is it?"

"Radek found that it can erase memories," explained Weir.

"Oh. So we're just going to erase her memories of the last day and a half?"

"Basically, yes. But we're only going to erase her memories just before we send her back because Radek found that it knocks the person unconscious for a little while so we can send back before she wakes up," replied Weir.

McKay clicked his fingers. "And because, I bet, seeing something too close to her erased memories could cause her to remember!"

Weir nodded. "That's right."

"Oh… and… not meaning to sound rude, but are we really just going to let her wander the city without even a security escort?" asked McKay.

"I don't see why not, she's an FBI agent, I'm sure she'll know not to touch anything. We're going to wipe her memory anyway, so it's not if she's going to leave with any important information," Weir reminded him.

"Ah. Good point. Right, I'll get back to work then, I think we've almost gotten that machine working," McKay told her.

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Mulder woke up with a very bad headache leaning against a tree, he remembered being hit by a blue blast from one of the conspirator's guns'. Mulder tried to get up and snapped his eyes open when he found that he couldn't move.

Mulder glanced down at the ropes that tied him securely to the tree and looked up angrily, expecting to see the military people mocking him. He stared in astonishment at the empty clearing. They'd buggered off! Mulder fought against the ropes and found that he could get them undone.

"Hey! Where did you go?! Where's Scully?!" yelled Mulder. "I know why you left! You're not from a parallel universe that was a cover! You've taken Scully up to one of your ships! You're afraid of what I know! You're afraid of the truth!"

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Captain Harris heard what were unmistakably the FBI agent's loud complaints. He turned to Mills. "Hear that, sir?"

Mills kept walking. "Hear what? I don't hear anything. Do you Sergeant?"

"No," answered Sergeant West.

Harris saw Mills's small smile and grinned as they continued their 'strategic retreat' with Mulder's bazooka… and handgun. They figured Mulder would be fine until someone stumbled across him and untied him, Teyla would be able to sense it if the two remaining Wraith Darts came down from space.

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Scully stumbled across a box of tapes; she had already seen a room with a T.V and tape player and had been wondering where the tapes were. She wanted to do something normal to take her mind off the craziness of the universe she was in until they figured out a way to send her back to her mostly same universe… well except Mulder of course, he wasn't sane.

Scully had just one problem with the tapes she'd found; none of them were labelled. She grabbed the top few and went off to watch them and hopefully they'd end up being a couple of good movies that would take her mind off the fact that she was in the lost city of Atlantis.

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Sheppard was in a bad mood. He didn't like being in the infirmary and he was feeling much better, probably because of painkillers, but still! At that moment Beckett walked over, looking pleased with himself.

"What?" asked Sheppard.

"Well, Colonel, if you think about it, it was only a week ago that I cleared you for duty after your wraith encounter," Beckett reminded him.

Sheppard thought he hardly needed reminding. "Yeah, well that wasn't my fault… and I blame McKay this time."

"As I was saying that was only a week ago, and here you are again. So I've decided that because you come here so often I should have a bed specially reserved for you." Beckett's smug tone was bordering on sarcasm.

Sheppard was about to comment when Beckett held up a label that said **JOHN SHEPPARD **in big clear block capitals, peeled off the backing and stuck it to Sheppard's bed frame.

Sheppard was not impressed. "That's not fair, as I said; it's not my fault, at least make McKay one too."

Beckett smiled. "Already done. I'll show it to him as a nice surprise next time he hurts himself."

Beckett waved a label that had **RODNEY McKAY** on it. He walked off, still smiling. Sheppard scowled.

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Scully inserted tape one into the tape player and turned on the T.V. The tape started playing.

A random man, Scully had never seen before appeared on the screen. Scully wondered which movie it was.

"Doctor Weir, if you are reading this, please respond."

Scully frowned… was it a fictional movie after all? After a short pause the man spoke again.

"I do know you're there Doctor. The existence of Atlantis is no secret among the Genii. It would be pointless not to answer."

Scully heard Dr Weir's voice in the background. "This is Doctor Weir."

"Oh good. I wanted to be certain you were there to see this," the guy on the video continued, and then stepped to one side so you could see Sheppard bound and gagged behind him.

Scully realised she probably shouldn't be watching the tape, but what better way could there be to learn about he people that she had to stay with for a while?

McKay's voice could also be heard in the background. "What have you done to him?"

"Nothing whatsoever Doctor McKay."

"Okay," McKay replied. "Let me re-phrase that. What are you planning to do?"

Scully watched as the guy on the video replied with; "It's quite simple, I'd like to make a trade."

Weir could be heard cutting across him. "Before we continue this conversation another second, I want to speak to Sheppard."

The man came slightly closer to smiling. "Be my guest."

Scully listen as McKay's exasperated reply was audible. "We'll re-phrase that to. We would like him to be able to speak to us."

The man on the video smirked. "Very well." He nodded to another guy, who removes Sheppard's gag.

"Under my command authority. Whatever he asks, don't do it!" ordered Sheppard and tried to say more but the second guy re-gaged him. Scully thought Sheppard looked suitably pissed. Scully wondered if it was that man Kolya McKay had mentioned earlier.

The man she was talking about on the video chuckled. "Well, as you can see he's his usual charming self."

Weir spoke again. "Explain your terms Kolya."

So it was the Kolya guy… what had McKay said to her again?

--FLASHBACK--

"Okay! For those of us who don't live in crazy universes, what _are_ you talking about?" questioned Scully.

"Oh," said McKay. "Kolya got a wraith to suck the life out of Sheppard in a prison."

--END FLASHBACK--

"Uh oh," thought Scully.

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Mills, Harris, West and Teyla stared in amazement at the intact Starplate.

Ronon had lost his temper at the inactive Starplate and had shot it repeatedly with his own gun… which was very powerful. Fortunately and miraculously the Starplate didn't have a single mark on it.

"Ronon!" scolded Teyla. "We will get home safely. But losing your temper is not going to help!"

Ronon grumbled and glared at the unmarked Starplate.

"Trying to destroy the only thing that can get us home isn't going to help either," Mills muttered under his breath.

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Scully stared at the tape as Kolya asked. "Do we have an arrangement?" Weir remained silent. "Very well."

Scully watched in horror as the wraith was allowed to feed on Sheppard, who was in obvious pain.

"Stop!" yelled Weir's voice in the background. "STOP!"

"Enough," said Kolya and Scully stared as the tape the recording had been put on went blank.

Scully blinked and felt shocked at what she'd just seen… she hadn't believed McKay. Maybe the tape had been planted for her to find and this was all some big joke.

The tape broke her out of her thoughts with an automated voice.

"This is a double sided tape, if you wish to finish your film simply take the tape out, and turn it over. Then insert the tape and press play."

**A/N:** lol. Don't you hate those automated voices?


	16. Chapter 16: The Ending

**A/N:** This is the last chapter of The Starplate Files… its my longest story so far. Sorry it took me so long to post, I just bought season 1 on dvd and have been watching lots of episodes, I watched Hide and Seek yesterday. :)

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE ENDING**

McKay searched irritatedly to find Scully, he knew they shouldn't have just let her wander around. He'd already checked the spare quarters Scully had been given, as well as the mess hall and he's come from the infirmary after telling Sheppard their plan of wiping Scully's memories.

He decided to check their T.V room.

McKay walked down the corridor towards the room and stopped at the door, noticing Scully on the couch. McKay started to call out to her… then noticed what she was watching.

McKay crossed the room and turned off the T.V. Why didn't Weir ever listen to him? He'd known the FBI agent would do something she shouldn't. Time for a lecture.

"What did you think you were doing? I mean, come on, there I was, slaving away trying to get you home and you're snooping around!" complained McKay.

"I…" started Scully.

"Oh, don't you even try! I've been working day and night, but you just had to snoop around things you shouldn't! Day and night I was working and you didn't even offer help!" Not that he would've either wanted or accepted it but McKay hadn't got any sleep that night and he just wanted to yell at someone and Scully had created the perfect opportunity.

"But…"

"You know what? I don't care. I don't want to hear your petty excuses. Come with me, I've just fixed the machine and we're sending you home."

McKay all but dragged Scully off the couch and out of the room.

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Mulder fought the ropes to get the gun he kept strapped to his leg for emergencies, but he just couldn't reach it. He was getting frustrated. There was still no sign of Scully and he was hungry, it was coming up on twenty four hours since he'd eaten anything.

He guessed the conspirators had left him to stave after taking Scully up to their spaceship.

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Not very far away the 'conspirators' were busy fighting over what was left of their emergency rations.

"I'm the team leader, therefore I should get the last power-bar," announced Mills, holding onto one side of the last power-bar.

"No, you shouldn't, being a leader doesn't give you rights to food," replied West, holding onto the other side of the last power-bar.

"If you two are gonna fight over it, I'll have it," suggested Harris.

Teyla and Ronon exchanged a glance. Ronon walked up to Mills and West, snatched the power-bar right out of their hands and gave it to Teyla, who ate it.

"Damn!" complained Mills, who was hungry.

Harris snorted in amusement at him.

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Scully found herself lad to a room filled with box-like green-grey spaceships and sighed; she'd thought she wouldn't have to see (or go in) any more spaceships. Scully also thought McKay had over reacted to her watching the tapes, he looked tired and grumpy. McKay walked off.

Weir walked into the room, talking on her radio.

"No, Colonel. Of course you can't go, you have to stay in the infirmary."

"I could use a wheelchair. Seriously, I just wanna go somewhere, I'm bored!"

"You staying in the infirmary, And that's final. Weir out."

Scully was amused, it sounded like Sheppard wanted out of the infirmary. Weir walked up to her.

"Ah, you're here. Now, we've decided that we're going to send you back in one of these ships with a team of our people. This is partly incase you somehow end up in the wrong universe, my people can take the Remote Machine and get you back here, and mostly because there is still some of my people in your universe who possibly might be having trouble with wraith," explained Weir.

"Alright," agreed Scully, deciding that another trip in a spaceship was worth getting back to her universe, maybe then she could forget that anything unusual had ever happened.

Weir led her to a ship that was parked next to the Parallel Universe Machine and she walked up the ramp.

Scully barely had enough time to take in the interior of the ship before McKay pointed a blue, strange looking handheld devise at her and pressed a button, Scully lost consciousness.

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Mills was hungry and bored.

"We should have been sent back by now," he announced.

"No shit," grumbled Harris, his usual happy nature was evaporating.

"I am sure Dr McKay will think of a way to get us home," said Teyla reassuringly.

"Are you?" asked Ronon doubtfully.

"I am… mostly sure," answered Teyla.

"Well I'm not," replied Ronon.

"I'm quite insulted by that, as I told Scully, I've been working day and night to get that Parallel Universe Machine working again." McKay stepped out of mid air, followed by Major Lorne.

"Wha…?" started Mills, then sighed. "I usually notice the Jumper landing."

"Lorne purposely landed extra quietly," replied McKay sarcastically, then turned back to the Jumper. "It's the right universe, bring her out."

Two more members of Lorne's team came out carrying Scully.

"She's just unconscious," Lorne answered the inevitable question. "We erased her memories."

"Okay," shrugged Mills. "She should be fine here, her partner isn't very far away. Nut before we go there are still two wraith darts in space we should probably drone them."

"Whatever," said McKay. "But then we're going back home. Where I can finish this adventure with a well deserved coffee."

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Mulder watched in amazement as Scully staggered into view.

"SCULLY! Are you alright?"

"Huh? What? Oh, hi Mulder." Scully paused. "Have I been drinking?"

Mulder frowned. "Why?"

"I have a headache." Scully staggered again.

"You were abducted by aliens!" announced Mulder. "The conspirators were right here!"

"I was what now? Sure Mulder sure. I think you've been drinking. Where are the conspirators now?" demanded Scully.

"They ran off!" replied Mulder. "They were afraid of the truth!"

"Uh huh."

"They were!" Mulder insisted. "See, they tied me up! You saw them!"

"Uh huh. Of course they did Mulder. Maybe we should both lay off the alcohol next time…."

Scully collapsed in a heap. Mulder had no way of knowing that Scully had collapsed because of harmless after effects of the memory wiping and struggled against the ropes again, partly out of concern for Scully, partly because he was annoyed that she hadn't untied him.

**A/N:** Wow, I still can't believe that I've finally finished this! Thanks to all the great people who did lots of reviewing! Oh, and I have an idea forming for a sequel to this so let me know if you think I should go ahead with it. :)


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